Businessman Suliman Carrim at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry in February 2026. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu) North West ANC-linked businessman Suleiman Carrim has told the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry that publicising issues around his movements could put his family at risk.
This emerged during the commission’s proceedings on Friday, 17 July 2026.
Carrim, whose first name is also recorded as Suliman, was not present for the proceedings.
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_594808_171345.jpg "Businessman Suliman Carrim at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 6 February 2026. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)")
The commission was meant to hear a postponement application through Carrim’s lawyers on Friday, but this was instead pushed to next week.
Carrim had previously indicated to the commission that he was medically unfit to continue testifying before it as a witness.
‘Shopping and lunching’
On Wednesday, though, evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson told the commission that two whistleblower reports placed Carrim at a shopping mall in Cape Town.
Chaskalson had said that Carrim apparently went into a Woolworths and then had a late lunch at a restaurant in the mall.
CCTV footage may have recorded this, and Chaskalson said the commission was trying to confirm if the individual spotted out and about was indeed Carrim.
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_586832_931505.jpg "Advocate Matthew Chaskalson at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. (Photo: Gallo Images / Frennie Shivambu)")
These issues were expected to be expanded on during Friday’s Madlanga Commission proceedings when the application to postpone Carrim’s testimony was meant to be heard.
However, Chaskalson said more time was needed before this could happen, which was why the postponement application was rolled over to next Friday.
‘Threats to my family’
He explained that Carrim wanted the application heard in camera because Carrim alleged that the details relating to it involved information that, if disclosed, “would implicate Mr Carrim’s fundamental rights to privacy and dignity”.
Chaskalson said that, according to Carrim, information he considered private related to his medical condition and medical treatment, as well as his family’s movements “and the security threats he and his family have faced”.
Carrim alleged that the public disclosure of this information could “risk serious harm to his treatment, dignity” and his “standing within his religious community”.
It could also place his children “at further risk where threats have already been made”.
If certain information were made public, Carrim believed it would prejudice his wife’s business and livelihood, which were already adversely affected given what has already emerged at the Madlanga Commission.
The commission will rule on Thursday, the day before the postponement application proceeds, whether or not it will be heard in camera.
Matlala, Mogotsi and Maumela
Earlier this year, Carrim was made to testify publicly at the commission after he failed to have it ruled that he do so in camera.
When Carrim testified, he admitted to dealings with:
- Organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, who faces accusations that he colluded with corrupt police officers and is a member of a drug cartel known as the Big Five.
- ANC fixer and fellow North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, who is now facing charges for allegedly faking his own attempted assassination.
- Morgan Maumela, whose name has surfaced in a Special Investigating Unit probe into R2-billion Tembisa Hospital looting. A whistleblower in this saga, Babita Deokaran, was previously murdered in a shooting.
On Wednesday, the Madlanga Commission heard that Carrim was still meant to supply information to it, including audited and unaudited financial statements relating to three of his companies.
Carrim was also meant to say who the auditors of one of the companies were.
The commission, meanwhile, is set to continue and hear testimony from other witnesses. DM