Lies, lies, lies, says Sibiya about WhatsApp messages alleging bribes

Suspended top cop and Deputy National Police Commissioner for Crime Detection, General Shadrack Sibiya, has dismissed evidence at the Madlanga Commission alleging he took bribes from tenderpreneur and attempted murder accused Vuzimuzi “Cat” Matlala.

Witness F, too ill to testify this week, previously alleged in his evidence at the Commission that Matlala had texted on WhatsApp that he paid Sibiya in impala and cash.

He revealed a WhatsApp thread, allegedly between ANC influence broker Brown Mogotsi and Matlala, making the allegations.

“I have no knowledge or involvement in those exchanges and no information as to how the alleged messages were extracted, preserved or presented to the Commission,” said Sibiya, testifying at the Commission on Wednesday, 18 February.

(For further background, this News24 article is useful.)

Sibiya said it was unclear how the messages had been extracted and triangulated, but the Commission uses the same methodology as the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture to check veracity.

Lies, lies, lies, says Sibiya on centralising dockets and delaying arrests

KZN provincial commissioner General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi levelled a damning allegation at Sibiya, saying that he had centralised 121 dockets and delayed arrests, suggesting his complicity in alleged criminality. These were investigations by the Political Killings Task Team.

Read more: Sibiya challenges Mkhwanazi amid growing tensions in South African police force

Sibiya went into detail to dispute this: “Contrary to General Mkhwanazi’s statement, none of the files contained formal warrants of arrest (J50 forms). Even where internal arrest instructions existed, there was no judicial authorisation. Only four dockets contained instructions to arrest.”

Then he detailed the four cases, stating the first had been closed three years before with no arrest carried out; the second and third were two years old, and the fourth was a year old.

“It is false to say that the dockets were under my control and that arrests were therefore stymied. The PKTT failed to act in 2022 and 2023 on fully investigated matters. They reveal a pattern of dormancy despite operational support and budgets.”

He said Mkhwanazi refused to accept the dockets’ transfer back to KwaZulu-Natal, which contributed to the delay in investigations, not Sibiya’s conduct.

“General Mkhwanazi has now gone so far as to claim that the relevant arrests were effected within a week of the dockets being returned to KZN. This assertion is incongruous and unimpressive,” said Sibiya.

‘Look who’s talking’ – I’m your senior

Mkhwanazi and Sibiya’s rivalry is like a cop movie – they clearly dislike each other. The provincial commissioner questioned Sibiya’s rapid rise when he was reinstated to the police after his first axing amid internal rivalry and factionalism.

“For 37 years I’ve done this job,” he told the Commission.

He said he was made a general in 2010, and Mkhwanazi only a year later. Like Sibiya, Mkhwanazi was reinstated as if he never left after being fired amid the unending factionalism that dogs the police service.

“It was as if to say ‘look who is talking’. He was [also] reinstated as if he never left,” said Sibiya.

“I’ve never been involved with drug cartels, I don’t work with drugs,” he said.

Sibiya faces investigation for getting too close to the drug and tender cartel being investigated by the Commission.

“I vehemently deny [that] I am close friends with Matlala. Any assertion of that is false. I was introduced to Matlala by a service provider because he ran a hospital at the SA Police College. During January 24, Matlala set up an appointment to visit me,” said Sibiya, repeating denials he made at Parliament.

As deputy national police commissioner of detectives, even this meeting was highly irregular.

Mkhwanazi’s TikTok fans, flamed by MK, flayed me

Sibiya also claimed that MK-aligned influencers on social media conspired against him.

He said accounts linked to former president Jacob Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party and in favour of Mkhwanazi attacked him on various platforms and were behind his downfall.

Sibiya was suspended after allegations that he conspired with two criminal masterminds to shutter the Political Killings Task Team from KZN that got too close to their action.

“On TikTok, you read things like ‘You touch Mkhwanazi, you touch us’ – there were such messages that would come. I am being tackled politically as well. There’s so much pressure being put on me,” said the policeman, once known as an anti-corruption crusader but who now faces serious graft allegations.

Read more: Shadrack Sibiya caught in the middle of glory and scandal

There is no love lost between Sibiya and Mkhwanazi, who were once both in the running to become the national police commissioner.

Various witnesses in two probes of police malfeasance have alleged that Sibiya received payment from crime kingpins Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and Katiso Molefe, both of whom are in jail on attempted murder and murder charges, among others.

Sibiya said the police raided his home in October 2025 after the MK party opened a case against him on various charges. He also claimed that Mkhwanazi had sent police to investigate his time at the City of Johannesburg as forensics investigation head, allegedly at the behest of its secretary-general Colleen Makhubele, who was once a short-lived Speaker of the Johannesburg city council.

Read more: Shadrack Sibiya, Hawks linked to alleged interference in KT Molefe’s arrest

Here are two other important strands of evidence from Sibiya’s morning testimony.

Sets out systemic Johannesburg corruption

For years, Sibiya has faced allegations that he misspent on spyware as head of GFIS, the City’s Group Forensic and Investigation Service. He denied that he had purchased grabbers or spyware but claimed to have procured equipment necessary to deal with systemic corruption. Sibiya was the founding head of the unit started by then-mayor Herman Mashaba.

“There’s so much crime, so much corruption. At revenue, where people pay their electricity, there are touts who ask you if they can help you – they work with individuals inside. You need to know how many buildings are hijacked and who are the owners. We need the [municipal-owned] entities to see what crimes are being committed in different environments.

“Every now and then, you get a call [from officials] saying ‘I suspect my office is bugged’. State security can’t be in each and every municipality. It was not spying equipment but equipment to monitor all the crimes in the City of Johannesburg, like a [fleet] car pouring petrol 10 times a day.”

Claims instruction to disband Political Killings Task Team came from the top

Sibiya used a document trail to show that the directive to disband the Political Killings Task Team, the action that catalysed Mkhwanazi’s spill-all, was decided by Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, who is now on paid gardening leave. It was implemented from National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola’s office.

Read more: Senzo Mchunu defends decision to disband National Political Killings Task Team as ‘inevitable’

Sibiya alleged that his name had been appended as author to close-out reports that ended the term of the task team. He showed a trail of correspondence preceding the closure to make a counterpoint: it was not a shock decision made by Mchunu on 31 December 2024, as the commission had repeatedly heard. He also said the task team was never meant to be a permanent structure that would be expanded across the country.

The commission will end in March and is in Phase 2, when all the people who have faced serious allegations have an opportunity to state their case. DM

This article was updated at 18:40 to include further testimony from Sibiya.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misidentified Shadrack Sibiya as having been seen with a white bag after visiting Katiso Molefe’s home. It was Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, a detective in Shadrack Sibiya’s office, who was seen in the footage.