Illustrative image | KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) | Advocate Elaine Harrison KZN's Director of Public Prosecutions. (Photo: Screengrab) | Suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu. (Photo: Phando Jikelo / RSA Parliament) 
Elaine Harrison, the Director of Public Prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal, viewed the province’s PKTT as essential because the crimes it was dealing with were destabilising and could spread.
So, when she saw reports on social media at the start of the year that it was being disbanded, she thought it was fake news.
Harrison, testifying on Friday, 26 September, at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, said she later realised that the disbandment news may be true, even though she was never officially told so.
“At no stage was any formal communication addressed to my office notifying us of the de-establishment of the task team,” she said.
Harrison added that she has still not been formally informed about the PKTT’s status.
She was the commission’s fourth witness.
‘Essential and necessary’
So far, a significant portion of the hearings, which started more than a week ago, have focused on Senzo Mchunu, the police minister who is now on special leave because of various allegations against him, and his order to disband KZN’s PKTT.
The PKTT started its work in 2018 to deal with political violence and related crimes, and Mchunu’s order to disband it was contained in a letter dated 31 December 2024.
According to evidence previously heard in the commission, Mchunu’s letter had said the PKTT was not “adding any value to policing in South Africa”.
The commission also heard that Mchunu had no authority to disband the team and that there were suspicions that he was pressured into doing so because this would have benefitted certain suspects under the impression that the team was investigating them.
Read more: Mchunu ‘unlawfully’ usurped Masemola’s power in political killings saga, Madlanga Commission hears
While the PKTT limited its work after Mchunu’s order, it was never fully disbanded.
On Friday, testifying at the Madlanga Commission, Harrison explained that political violence was an ongoing issue that had been flagged, and it was anticipated that these crimes would pick up ahead of elections.
“As the Director of Public Prosecution for KwaZulu-Natal, I have considered the Political [Killings] Task Team as an essential and necessary structure for the province… and the country as a whole,” she said.
“This is so as the team is precisely aimed at dealing with politically motivated and related crimes that gained momentum and threatened to destabilise the province and to spiral into other provinces.”
Harrison told the commission that she had been on leave in December 2024 and part of January this year.
“So, during January 2025 I then, through social media reports… came across the de-establishment of the task team and at that time I thought it was fake news,” she said.
Harrison testified that when her leave was over and she returned to work in January, the advocate dealing with the PKTT told her that “the social media reports may well be true”.
‘We owe it to victims’
While the PKTT was never fully dissolved, as per Mchunu’s order, 121 dockets were removed from it earlier this year and were only recently returned.
This means that for several months no investigative work was done on those dockets.
Harrison, testifying on Friday at the commission, said work needed to be done to make up for the time that dockets meant to have been with the team were removed.
“We owe certain people, or victims, responses to these matters.”
Read more: ‘You do your job, I’ll do mine’ — Cachalia, Masemola make amends over political murder dockets
What Harrison testified in terms of never being officially told about Mchunu’s disbandment plan for the PKTT roughly tallies with what KZN police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi previously told the commission.
He’d said he found out about Mchunu’s plan to disband the PKTT through a WhatsApp message from a friend who was a civilian, and in no way linked to policing.
Mkhwanazi was the Madlanga Commission’s first witness.
The commission was created on President Cyril Ramaphosa’s orders to investigate a series of accusations that Mkhwanazi initially made during a press conference in July.
Read more: Dithering Ramaphosa may have to testify before policing inquiries
While testifying at the commission last week, Mkhwanazi also referenced Harrison and a letter she wrote to him, dated 10 June 2025.
Her letter said in part: “There has been no formal communication to the office of the national Director of Public Prosecutions, as well as my office, on this issue.
“It is of concern that this office remains unsure of what the correction position is regarding this team.”
Harrison’s testimony on Friday therefore elaborated on what was contained in her letter.
Dissecting Mchunu’s decision
The focus earlier this week was on other aspects relating to the PKTT.
Major General Petronella van Rooyen, the governance, legislation and policy head at the SAPS Legal Services Division, on Thursday testified that it was inappropriate for Mchunu to have instructed that the PKTT be disbanded.
“The minister unlawfully strayed into the constitutional competence of the national commissioner when he issued the letter for the disbandment of the PKTT,” she said.
In advance of that, national police commissioner Fannie Masemola also testified that he viewed Mchunu’s directive as a “total encroachment” on his position as SAPS boss.
Read more: ‘False narrative and encroachment’ — Masemola on Mchunu’s sudden Political Killings Task Team disbandment
Masemola had alleged that he tried several times to get to the bottom of why exactly Mchunu suddenly wanted the PKTT disbanded.
He said Mchunu told him that political killings had only happened before 1994, when South Africa became a democracy, and that “what is happening now is just murders”.
Mchunu had therefore tried to use this alleged stance, which Masemola pointed out was false because political killings were clearly happening, to suggest the PKTT was no longer necessary.
The Madlanga Commission is expected to resume on Monday, 29 September.
Dumisani Khumalo, the national head of Crime Intelligence before his arrest earlier this year on charges he has denied, and who Mkhwanazi inferred was targeted as part of a plot to implode investigations, is set to testify. DM