Former Ekurhuleni mayor Tania Campbell says corruption allegations during her tenure were probed

Tania Campbell, the former mayor of the City of Ekurhuleni, says that during her mayoralty, any allegations of wrongdoing brought to her attention were referred for investigation.

Speaking to Daily Maverick on Tuesday, Campbell said: “One of the requests for the scope of the investigation was to investigate any unlawful or improper conduct by officials or employees of Ekurhuleni, suppliers, providers of Ekurhuleni or any other person or entity.

“The allegations aired at the Madlanga Commission have shattered public trust in the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Police Department [EMPD] and the municipality. Only decisive investigations and punitive action — including criminal charges against any official found guilty, past or present — can restore public confidence,” she said.

At the centre of a litany of allegations against the EMPD is testimony by suspended metro police chief Jabulani Isaac Mapiyeye, who told the commission that a 21 October memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the department and alleged organised-crime figure Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala’s CAT VIP Protection Services was unlawful.

Read more: Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala and the ‘unlawful deal’ with Ekurhuleni metro cops

The MOU was signed during Campbell’s first stint as mayor before she was ousted in October 2022 in a motion of no confidence proposed by ANC councillors Khehla Madlala and Dora Mlambo.

Campbell was removed from the position a second time, in March 2023, after a motion of no confidence was tabled by the ANC, EFF and seven other small parties in the Ekurhuleni Council.

Despite the MOU being signed during her mayoralty, Campbell said neither she nor the DA was aware of it.

“No reports were served. Both Matlala and [Julius] Mkhwanazi confirmed this during their Madlanga Commission interviews,” she said.

Campbell was responding to damning allegations against the EMPD made at the Madlanga Commission.

Central to this was testimony by slain whistleblower Marius van der Merwe, known as Witness D, who alleged that suspended EMPD deputy chief Julius Mkhwanazi ordered officers to clean a murder scene and dispose of the body.

Read more:

• Ekurhuleni metro police officers involved in theft, torture, murder, commission told
• Ekurhuleni officials allegedly protected metro police boss Julius Mkhwanazi and his ‘rogue unit’ for years

The alleged murder occurred in mid-2022 in Brakpan during an EMPD and private security operation aimed at recovering a stolen truck and stock.

Campbell told Daily Maverick that she has requested President Cyril Ramaphosa to consider authorising the Special Investigating Unit to probe the R2-billion revenue shortfall at the City of Ekurhuleni, which was not discussed at the Madlanga Commission

The current Ekurhuleni executive mayor, Nkosindiphile Xhakaza, said in September that the R2-billion revenue deficit between July and September 2024 stemmed from entrenched mismanagement, driven by systemic inaccuracies and gaps in the meter-reading and billing environment.

Did EMPD function as a criminal enterprise?

Professor Kholofelo Rakubu, the head of Tshwane University of Technology’s Department of Law, Safety and Security Management, told Daily Maverick that, based on what the Madlanga Commission has heard, there was at least a prima facie basis to infer that certain members of the EMPD operated as a coordinated criminal enterprise.

“The assassination of Van der Merwe following his testimony, coupled with Ipid’s [the Independent Police Investigative Directorate] confirmation that the torture/murder cover‑up investigation is at an advanced stage, strengthens the inference that the group’s conduct was organised, purposeful and protective of criminal interests.

“The pattern described — unauthorised security memorandums, alleged ‘rogue unit’ operations, failures in basic forensic duties by dozens of officers and interference with disciplinary processes — aligns with indicators of enterprise‑like criminality embedded in a public institution, rather than isolated misconduct by individuals,” she said.

She added that the allegations of torture and murder, extortion of spaza-shop owners, hijackings, copper-theft rackets, unlawful private security integration and an alleged murder scene clean-up — collectively pointed to contraventions of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (Poca).

“While final determinations will rest on prosecutorial assessments of continuity, organisational structure and financial flows, the reported record appears sufficient to meet the threshold for a full-scale Poca investigation,” she said.

Political analyst Professor Dirk Kotzé of Unisa’s Department of Political Sciences agreed that Poca was relevant in this case, as was the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Activities Act and legislation that deals with the conduct of public service officials.

North West University political analyst Professor André Duvenhage told Daily Maverick that, based on the available evidence — which had not yet been tested in court — a criminal enterprise appeared to be operating within the EMPD and related institutions.

He said the evidence pointed to an organised structure in which elements of the police department formed part of a broader criminal system, with individuals linked to criminal networks benefiting from the arrangement.

Was Ekurhuleni captured by criminal elements?

Kotzé told Daily Maverick that the evidence suggests that Matlala had “captured” the top structure of the EMPD for his own interests.

However, he cautioned that no evidence had been presented that other departments of the metro were affected.

Rakubu said that, while “capture” was a strong term, the available evidence suggested, at a minimum, a period where criminal or private interests leveraged municipal policing systems, procurement‑like arrangements and internal processes to entrench impunity and advance objectives inconsistent with constitutional policing.

She said allegations of unlawful security MOUs, private vehicles registered as municipal assets, the shielding of officials and delayed disciplinary hearings pointed to deep institutional deformation, where public policing powers were bent to serve private interests and suppress accountability — elements of localised State Capture.

Duvenhage said: “I had no doubt there was strong state involvement at least; to me, state involvement and State Capture are the same thing, but the extent is probably different.

“State Capture means the state is fully captured. Now I won’t exclude the possibility, but I will at the minimum level say there was huge state influence at least in certain departments and in certain sections, according to the evidence I have seen before Parliament’s ad hoc committee as well as what I’ve heard about the Madlanga Commission and people giving evidence in this regard,” said Duvenhage.

Murder of Van der Merwe under scrutiny

Van der Merwe was shot multiple times in front of his family outside his Brakpan home on the evening of Friday, 5 December. The killing has raised questions about whether it was intended to silence him before the matter about which he testified at the Madlanga Commission reached court.

Willem Els, a security expert at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), said the organisation had assigned a dedicated team to investigate the killing.

“We have come to the conclusion that Julius Mkhwanazi should be considered for protective custody. Because, at the end of the day, he is going to be implicated, but he is also going to give a lot of information to bring the other people out.

“Every witness who testified before the Madlanga Commission was threatened in some way. In the Van der Merwe case, even though he appeared as Witness D, just by his voice and what he revealed, everyone involved [knew] who he was even though he was a witness,” he said.

Els said Mkhwanazi may have been exploited by criminal networks, describing him as someone “used by syndicates to get what they wanted”.

He said the full extent of the syndicates was unclear, but as investigations unfold, Mkhwanazi could provide crucial information on who was involved.

Els cautioned that witness killings could seriously compromise evidence and weaken its admissibility in court.

He said that when witnesses were killed, investigators had to restart cases.

“A court process is very different from the Madlanga Commission. The commission can question witnesses and make recommendations, but in court, every detail must be broken down and tested through cross-examination. Losing witnesses makes that process infinitely harder,” he said. DM