Butt lifts, reprimands, pillow talk: The parliamentary theatrics around Mkhwanazi’s drug cartel claims

How exactly did reference to Brazilian butt lifts (BBls) make it into South Africa’s Parliament?

Well, through the ad hoc committee investigating KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s staggering claim that a drug cartel known as the Big Five has infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice system, politics and private security.

For roughly five months the committee has heard testimony from an array of witnesses – from top police officers and suspended state officials, to civilians.

The witness testimony section of the proceedings concluded on Wednesday, 18 March 2026, and a final report based on it must be compiled and tabled in the National Assembly. The deadline is the end of this month.

Like several other parliamentary meetings, the ad hoc committee has been livestreamed, and it seems to have garnered many more viewers.

Unlike several other parliamentary meetings, sittings were often gruelling marathons, running for 10 hours or more.

All in all, it has given us a rare, long-form glimpse into South Africa’s democracy in action – at times bizarre, bordering on a fever dream.

Democracy in action and ‘pinching the cat’

MPs had a chance to question ad hoc committee witnesses under an intense national spotlight – and we’ve had a chance to watch them.

Some may have played to the cameras, or at the very least been strategic in how they’ve portrayed themselves.

Remember, several MPs (and their political parties) have social media accounts; clips of them, punchily taking on senior state officials called as witnesses, can be shared there… it just so happens to be a local government election year, when popularity matters most.

Now, with respect to the ad hoc committee MPs and knowing full well that some might disagree, sassy, scolding-style oration and mash-ups of sermons with motivational speeches aren’t always necessarily suited to Parliament.

The Patriotic Alliance’s Ashley Sauls has tended to do the latter when concluding his questioning of witnesses.

And who can forget ActionSA’s Dereleen James grilling, almost admonishing, former police watchdog boss Robert McBride about his relationship with lawyer Sarah-Jane Trent?

In that same breath, who can forget Trent’s tears when she appeared before the committee? Those served as a reminder of the gravity of it and the granular impacts of State Capture.

Back to James.

While questioning McBride about Trent, James exclaimed to him: “Julle het die kat geknyp!”

Direct translation: “You pinched the cat.”

Let’s leave it at that.

BBL becomes a thing

Several months ago, James was the first to utter three letters – BBL – during ad hoc committee proceedings.

BBL, a quick online search revealed, stands for Brazilian butt lift, which refers to surgery to contour the buttocks.

These three letters resurfaced repeatedly before the committee, as well as a parallel hearing investigating the same drug cartel infiltration accusations, the much more austere Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.

Suspended deputy national commissioner of crime detection Shadrack Sibiya fits in here. (He and Mkhwanazi don’t see eye-to-eye.)

Sibiya claimed at the Madlanga Commission that organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, an alleged Big Five cartel member, had financed a police officer’s BBL.

The officer is Hilda Senthumule, who has been filling Sibiya’s position in an acting capacity after he was suspended last year.

She subsequently testified before the ad hoc committee and denied the Matlala money matter

‘National asset’ and ‘resource manipulation’

Senthumule’s affidavit to the committee explained: “In 2023, I took a conscious decision to go for liposuction in certain body areas that I regarded as stubborn.

“I approached an aesthetic doctor with the intent to do some cosmetic procedures including liposuction and body contouring.”

Senthumule added that the “procedure was fully paid for by myself”. (The individual who performed this procedure was the aptly named Doctor Pert.)

She treated the ad hoc to quite a spectacle in this regard, telling MPs: “People have been dying to see this BBL.”

Senthumule also stood up and twirled, saying: “It has become a national asset, so it must be seen.” (What must actually be seen are arrests, especially of corrupt state figures and other high-flying criminals, that could go a long way towards reducing violence that affects innocent people.)

Mkhwanazi spoke about Senthumule on the ad hoc committee’s final day of hearing witness testimony.

On Wednesday, 18 March, he said that after she’d had her time in the witness stand in Parliament, “she walks out here like a celebrity”.

Mkhwanazi then ripped in, saying he removed her from the Crime Intelligence unit back in 2012 because of issues he picked up about alleged resource manipulation.

He made it clear that he did not trust Senthumule.

‘Pillow talk’

Another witness before the ad hoc committee was Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (Idac) head Andrea Johnson.

Mkhwanazi previously alleged before the committee that sources in Idac had told him there was a good structure in it, but also a “structure that is malicious that is used as a weapon to further disrupt the criminal justice operations”.

Idac carried out high-level Crime Intelligence arrests, including the unit’s boss, Dumisani Khumalo, last year, who Mkhwanazi insinuated had been framed.

Johnson rejected much of what Mkhwanazi alleged.

She denied there was a “malicious structure” in Idac.

It is here that Parliament (McBride and Trent aside) got a glimpse of another relationship.

Johnson admitted that her husband had worked in the police’s Crime Intelligence unit for about 16 years, which means that when Khumalo was arrested, he was Mr Johnson’s boss.

Testifying before the ad hoc committee, Johnson had insisted that she and her husband never discussed their work. MPs weren’t convinced.

Johnson said something that would have fit brilliantly into a soap opera script, but which was actually very serious: “Pillow talk gets people killed.”

Cele and the freebies

A witness who displayed a lot of personality before the ad hoc committee was former police minister Bheki Cele.

He came across as unabashed, even when talking about some rather dubious-sounding dealings.

Cele was upfront about knowing “Cat” Matlala.

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He testified that they had met in late 2024 at the Beverly Hills Hotel in Durban, which he described as a “high-end” location where he regularly ate breakfast.

The meeting was before Matlala was arrested on various criminal charges, but while he was experiencing issues with the police.

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Cele confirmed that, after they met, he twice stayed at Matlala’s penthouse in Pretoria.

Referring to this, Cele explained: “It is because it was a freebie... and I am not working. I am a pensioner. So here is a nice place, by the way.

“I’m not in government. I’m not going to declare. I guess if I were in government, I would have gone and declared. But now I sleep, I wake up, I go home.”

Imprisoned MPs and Cat’s jail couture

For his part, Matlala testified that he’d given lots of cash – collected in Woolworths shopping bags he called “the money bag” – to Cele and labelled him an “extortionist”.

The manner in which Matlala addressed the ad hoc committee adds another rather fever-dreamish element to what transpired in Parliament over the past several months.

At the time of his testimony, Matlala was detained in Pretoria’s Kgosi Mampuru Prison.

So, the entire ad hoc committee had to relocate… onto the jail premises.

This meant several of South Africa’s MPs were, in a manner of speaking, made to go to prison, and the country got to see the likes of the EFF’s Julius Malema, who was previously found guilty of unlawfully possessing a firearm, kinda in jail. (Malema has not been sentenced in that firearm case.)

As for Matlala, he’d admitted to loving money.

Physically underscoring his words was his attire – he was dressed head-to-toe in designer gear paired with bling in the form of shackles.

The bottom line: drug trafficking

At times, the critical issue of drug trafficking has been lost in the mounds of accusations, counter-allegations, fresh sub-scandals and displays that have emerged from Parliament’s ad hoc committee.

What has become obvious, though, is that, based on the witness testimony over about five months, there are two main factions involving the South African Police Service.

Some officers and state figures stand by Mkhwanazi and his Big Five drug cartel infiltration accusations. Others of the view that he is misleading the public to divert attention from other criminality in the Crime Intelligence unit – slush fund looting.

Beyond all this is a reality happening across South Africa – drug trafficking.

The first letter of BBL points towards Brazil, from where many cocaine consignments have left, destined for South Africa, mainly Durban Harbour.

Let’s hope investigators keep their eyes on that narcotrafficking conduit, as well as many others.

As for knyping die kat/pinching the cat, let’s hope the police thoroughly investigate “Cat” Matlala and co.

If focus is on where it needs to be, we may get answers about the cartel and its colluders allegedly compromising our security. DM