Reports link Cyril Ramaphosa campaign to shadowy figure at the heart of cop scandal

He is the shadowy figure at the heart of explosive allegations made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi – and in the past, he has aligned himself strongly with the politics of President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Media reports from around 2017 show that Brown Mogotsi was a fairly high‑profile lobbyist for the ANC presidential campaign of Ramaphosa before the party’s elective conference at Nasrec in December 2017.

A Sunday Times report from May 2017 names Mogotsi as the “organiser” of a pro-Ramaphosa lobby group that included regional and provincial ANC leaders. At the time, Mogotsi publicly urged Ramaphosa to leave his Cabinet post if then President Jacob Zuma would not endorse Ramaphosa as his successor. 

A year later, a Daily Maverick article would refer to Mogotsi as a “known Ramaphosa campaigner in North West”, at the time taking court action against Ramaphosa’s perceived political enemies.

Read more: After a damning report and takeover by the national government, Mahumapelo attempts brutal fightback 

The Presidency had not responded to Daily Maverick’s questions about the nature of Ramaphosa’s relationship with Mogotsi, if any, by the time of publication. 

But the apparent overlap of political circles raises further uncomfortable issues for an administration that came to power on a reformist agenda – and is now being accused of being in unsettling proximity to a complex criminal web.

Mogotsi alleged to be go-between for criminal and police minister

In Mkhwanazi’s provocative 6 July press conference, he accused Mogotsi of acting as an intermediary between Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and alleged criminal Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who Mkhwanazi claims is at “the centre of a sophisticated criminal syndicate operating at the highest levels of the state”.

The allegations would subsequently see Ramaphosa place Mchunu on suspension pending an investigation.

In particular, Mkhwanazi alleged that there are phone records showing communications and financial transactions between Mchunu, Mogotsi and Matlala, with Matlala allegedly providing Mchunu and Mogotsi with financial support in exchange for having investigations into him lifted.

Critical to all this is Mchunu’s disbanding of the Political Killings Task Team in December 2024. One of Mkhwanazi’s claims is that the task team was going after Matlala, and that it was Mogotsi who sent Matlala a ­message to tell him that the task team would be disbanded.

Mkhwanazi has yet to provide any public evidence of his claims. But Mchunu did himself no favours in the court of public opinion by seeming to do a U-turn on the question of whether he knew Mogotsi.

In Parliament in March, Mchunu claimed to have no association with Mogotsi. Yet in a statement on 9 July, in response to the Mkhwanazi press conference, Mchunu said that he “knows and has met Mr Brown Mogotsi”, but described him as “just a comrade and not an associate of the minister”. 

In papers lodged on Wednesday, 23 July, in response to the MK party’s legal challenge to Mchunu’s suspension, Mchunu conceded that he had “interacted with Mr Mogotsi since 2017, in the presence of other comrades”.

Mchunu elaborated further: “He is a comrade, as we are members of the same political party and have engaged on party and service delivery matters on a number of occasions”.

Who is Brown Mogotsi?

The man from North West who campaigned so ardently for Ramaphosa in 2017 is shrouded in mystery.

Company records scrutinised by Daily Maverick show that Mogotsi was previously listed as a director of some eight companies, including one called “North West Crimebusters”. All are registered as inactive today.   

Mogotsi described himself to the Sunday Times in 2017 as an “ordinary ANC member”, but City Press recorded earlier this month that he is “close to the top echelons of the ANC, including several ministers, especially those who served in MK”.

City Press also described him as owning an upmarket bar in Mafikeng from where he is known to “summon HODs and MECs for instructions on tenders”. Exactly where this apparent political muscle stems from is unclear.

Perhaps most curious has been Mogotsi’s habit of trying to meddle in provincial politics through a vehicle called the Brown Mogotsi Foundation. Through this, he was instrumental in forcing then North West Premier Supra Mahumapelo out of office in 2018, at least partly because of Mahumapelo’s support for Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, rather than Ramaphosa, at the ANC’s 2017 Nasrec conference.

Most recently, Mogotsi claimed to be an undercover police informant who played a role in the arrest of fugitive rapist Thabo Bester. This smacks of fantasy – but Mogotsi does seem to have access to police intel, if you believe Mkhwanazi. The KZN police commissioner said in his press briefing that Mogotsi had messaged him last September with a picture of a register that is only supposed to be accessible to police.

Mogotsi also appears to have knowledge of the law from the other side: he reportedly has at least three previous criminal convictions, including one for assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

Mkhwanazi allegations are a political firestorm for Ramaphosa

To understand why Mkhwanazi’s claims amount to such a political headache for Ramaphosa, it’s helpful to revisit the political context leading up to the ANC’s elective conference at Nasrec in 2017.

Senzo Mchunu was one of Ramaphosa’s closest allies and was endorsed by Ramaphosa as his preferred candidate, on his “slate”, for secretary general.

Mchunu was absolutely critical to Ramaphosa’s campaigning because his constituency was in KwaZulu-Natal: the ANC’s largest province by membership, and whose delegates to the elective conference were expected to fall in line with former president Jacob Zuma’s endorsement and vote for Dlamini Zuma.

Throughout the campaign, Mchunu leveraged his regional influence to rally ANC branches and delegates in support of Ramaphosa’s message of reform. Notably, local ANC structures that aligned with Mchunu and Ramaphosa faced pushback from the Zuma-aligned KZN leadership; for instance, the ANC’s KZN provincial executive committee moved to disband the Lower South Coast regional leadership, which had been campaigning for Ramaphosa, a move widely seen as an attempt to thwart that region’s pro-Ramaphosa campaign. 

This illustrates how Mchunu actively mobilised support for Ramaphosa, triggering resistance from the opposing faction in the province.

Mchunu’s political role in KZN significantly influenced the dynamics of the 2017 Nasrec conference. By delivering a portion of the KZN delegates to Ramaphosa, Mchunu materially helped narrow the gap between Ramaphosa and Dlamini Zuma. And although it may have been the recently deceased David Mabuza whose Mpumalanga delegates ultimately handed victory to Ramaphosa, Mchunu’s contribution cannot be discounted.

Mchunu himself would narrowly (and controversially) lose the secretary-general position at that conference to Ace Magashule. But Ramaphosa went on to repay Mchunu for his support with a series of Cabinet posts in which his brand has been low-visibility and also low-controversy.

“While some of Mchunu’s leading contemporaries in the ANC have been entangled in one form of scandal or another while amassing fortunes dubiously, the former teacher has largely stayed clear of adverse publicity,” veteran KwaZulu-Natal journalist Cyril Madlala wrote of him in Daily Maverick.

Read more: Senzo Mchunu crafted a clean image – KZN’s top cop has blown it up

That all changed for Mchunu on 6 July with Mkhwanazi’s press conference.  

How much truth is there in the Mkhwanazi allegations?

Ramaphosa has acted swiftly on the Mkhwanazi claims: suspending Mchunu and establishing a commission of inquiry to be helmed by Acting Deputy Chief Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga.

The President has also suddenly taken action against South Gauteng director of public prosecutions Andrew Chauke – almost two years after National Prosecuting Authority boss Shamila Batohi wrote to Ramaphosa to request his suspension, citing serious concerns about Chauke’s
conduct in office – multiple questionable decisions, delays and failures to prosecute high-profile cases involving State Capture and corruption.

When Daily Maverick asked the Presidency this week if Ramaphosa’s sudden action on Chauke was prompted by the Mkhwanazi press conference, spokesperson Vincent Magwenya demurred, saying: “The Chauke matter predates Mkhwanazi’s allegations.”

Yet it is notable that among Mkhwanazi’s allegations was that the criminal syndicate he claims to have identified includes “prosecutors in Gauteng province”.

Many South Africans have expressed gratitude to Mkhwanazi for having seemingly prompted unusually decisive action from Ramaphosa – despite the fact that Mkhwanazi’s claims remain wholly untested.

It remains to be seen what evidence Mkhwanazi will turn over to the Madlanga Commission. But one aspect of the claims – that Mchunu ordered the shuttering of the Political Killings Task Team in December 2024 – did attract attention at the time for being a strange decision. 

One KwaZulu-Natal expert termed it “bizarre” at the time, on the grounds that political assassinations tend to increase ahead of local government elections, which are scheduled for 2026. 

If the commission confirms Mkhwanazi’s claims, it will mark a dramatic fall from grace for a political grouping heralded in 2017 as ushering in a new climate of clean governance in stark contrast to the dark days of State Capture. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.