Is the SAPS's Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi really a ‘top cop’? Data analysis says no

Two months have passed since the dramatic press briefing by Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the KZN Commissioner of Police, where he made serious allegations against senior police officials and then Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu.

The dust has certainly not settled on the matter with counter-allegations having been made against Mkhwanazi by, for example, KZN violence monitor Mary de Haas. It continues to reverberate in our public discourse, where lines have been drawn and the exchanges are still heated.

Mkhwanazi’s explosive accusations present challenging epistemic problems. How do we know if his claims are true or not? Has he made arguments that should be subjected to tests of logic, or are his claims of the kind that require empirical verification? What would count as reliable knowledge in this matter?

However, not everything that has been claimed in the public domain by Mkhwanazi – and about Mkhwanazi – is hampered by the same epistemic problems as his accusations against Mchunu. This pertains especially to the prevalent claim that Mkhwanazi has performed well as the SA Police Service (SAPS) KZN Commissioner – a position he has held since May 2018.

The assertion that Mkhwanazi has been a “top cop” can indeed be tested using publicly available information.

In this article, Mkhwanazi’s performance is analysed using two important metrics: public trust in the SAPS in KZN; and SAPS statistics on the incidence of serious crimes in KZN.

There are many other metrics that may be used to give a more comprehensive account of Mkhwanazi’s performance – which would far exceed the limits of this article. However, while not exhaustive, these two dimensions constitute a fair, high-level test since any provincial SAPS commissioner’s claim to be a top cop should be corroborated by the outcomes of public trust in the SAPS and the levels of serious crime in that province under their watch.

It is important to point out explicitly that the findings presented below do not seek to address the substance of Mkhwanazi’s allegations against others – those I leave to the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.

Nevertheless, an assessment of claims about Mkhwanazi’s performance during his seven-year tenure as the KZN Commissioner is relevant since it sheds light on the kind of senior policeman he has been, his character, bona fides, and even his possible motives. No accuser, especially one making such serious accusations, can reasonably ask to be spared this kind of public scrutiny.

How did Mkhwanazi do in building public trust in the SAPS in KZN?

The HSRC’s SA Social Attitudes Survey (2003 to 2024/25) provides a statistically reliable measure of what happened with public trust in the SAPS. The following graph compares the national and KZN levels of public trust in SAPS over the period from 2017 to 2024/25. It indicates the percentage of respondents who expressed trust and strong trust in the SAPS.

It is clear from this data that public trust in the SAPS has generally been on a declining trajectory.

In the two years preceding Mkhwanazi’s appointment as Commissioner, public trust in the SAPS in KZN was slightly higher than the national level. However, following Mkhwanazi’s first appointment in May 2018 (as Acting Commissioner) and his formal appointment in December 2018, the KZN level has been consistently lower than the national level, with the exception of 2021 when the KZN level equalled the national level.

How did Mkhwanazi do in the first two years of his tenure?

I was able to find SAPS annualised comparative crime statistics on contact crimes for 2018/19 and 2019/20 fiscal years, which were the first two years of Mkhwanazi’s tenure as KZN Commissioner.

Contact crimes include the most serious crimes against the person: murder, attempted murder, sexual offences, assault and robbery. While there are other categories of crime, the performance of a provincial Commissioner would be judged first and foremost on the levels of these contact crimes in their province.

The graph below depicts the total number of contact crimes reported to the SAPS in KZN from 2010/11 to 2019/20. It shows a reducing trend from 2010/11 to 2017/18 – the period prior to Mkwhanazi’s appointment. However, in 2018/19 and 2019/20 – Mkhwanazi’s first two years as Commissioner – it shows a significantly worsening trend.

How did Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi do on combatting contact crime in KZN in the past five years of his tenure?

Although I would have preferred annualised data for the period from 2017 to 2024/25, the quarterly data that I managed to find do give a longitudinal indication of what happened with levels of contact crime over the last five years of Mkhwanazi’s tenure as the KZN Commissioner. 

A comparison of the quarterly data points shows that the total number of contact crimes in KZN increased significantly over the five quarters considered. This increased by 22% over five years when the first quarter of 2025 is compared with the same quarter in 2021.

A fairer representation of levels of crime would take the KZN population into account. The table below depicts the ratios of contact crimes per 100,000 of the population in KZN.

As the quarterly ratios in the above table show, the KZN murder rate has come down over the past five years (from 11.2/100 000 in Q1-2021 to 10.0/100 000 by Q1-2025). However, the total ratio and all the other sub-categories of contact (ie rape, attempted murder, assault and robbery) all got steadily worse over the five quarterly periods considered.

Conclusions

The data presented above supports the following specific conclusions:

1. Public trust in the KZN SAPS deteriorated significantly during Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi’s seven-year tenure and underperformed the national level in most of those years;
2. During the first two years of Mkhwanazi’s tenure, contact crime in KZN increased significantly. This was a reversal of the trend in the years prior to his appointment; and
3. Over the past five years (2021 to 2025), quarterly statistics on the total number of contact crimes in KZN show an increase of 22%. When these figures are converted to ratios per 100,000 of the KZN population, they show that the murder ratio reduced. However, all other sub-categories increased steadily and significantly over the five years.

On the basis of these findings, the overall conclusion is that Lieutenant General Mkhwanazi’s performance outcomes as KZN Commissioner of Police have been lacklustre at best, and have generally underperformed national levels of SAPS performance on building trust and combatting serious crime.

The epistemically sound conclusion then is that Mkhwanazi is no “top cop”. DM