Letter to Mahlamba Ndlopfu: The Brazilian butt of this joke is on us

Ah, Chief Dwasaho! I do not believe in coincidences. I believe dysfunction and criminal neglect are old drinking partners. They stagger out of the same tavern daily with the same wicked intentions.

Confusing? Stay with me. Can someone with a functioning cerebrum explain what exactly you, President Cyril Ramaphosa, were doing in Brazil on 9 and 10 March? Your office has been carpet-bombing us with trade documents, investment notes and those smiling pictures from Brasília.

Yet, back home, the country is trapped in a grotesque telenovela of police capture, political interference and the slow collapse of public trust. At the precise moment your handlers wanted us to admire strategic partnerships and bilateral trade, South Africans were being force-fed another kind of Brazilian import on live daytime television. I speak of the now-infamous Brazilian butt lift (BBL) subplot spilling from testimony linked to the parliamentary inquiry into police capture.

So, one must ask, my leader: was this a state visit or a masterclass in political misdirection? While the Presidency was marketing Brazil as diplomacy, the republic was consuming it as an allegory – a surgical one, nogal (sic). A state forever trying to enhance the backside of a broken system cosmetically.

But the drama did not end with the backside viewing. Soon, the stage welcomed people in “business”, financiers and political couriers. It turns out that Lieutenant General Richard Shibiri, the suspended head of (dis)Organised Crime in the South African Police Service (SAPS), has developed a taste for finer things, though not the disciplines of public office.

The Madlanga Commission heard that Sergeant Fannie Nkosi (God bless him) was no mere subordinate, but a useful errand man orbiting power, someone who could handle the personal and political with equal ease. Shoes, dogs, favours – whatever the moment required, the lines appear to have blurred embarrassingly.

Then enters Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala: alleged cartel figure and, the testimony confirmed, a man whose generosity stretched to at least R70,000, which Shibiri insists was merely a loan. By sheer coincidence, Nkosi is also linked to suspended police general Shadrack Sibiya, serving as both ice boy and go-between for Cat and Sibiya. By force of habit and hustle, he also knows Katiso “KT” Molefe, another alleged cartel figure.

And so the republic, instead of being ­governed, is reduced to screening bad adult television in broad daylight while our BabyNoksies sit in the lounge, asking awkward questions about who is on TV. And why are the wrong people always the ones on TV?

Tenderpreneurs in heels

While I was still trying to process the spectacle of Lieutenant General Hilda Senthumule, divisional commissioner for Detective and Forensic Services and acting deputy national commissioner for Crime Detection, sashaying into Parliament like a Miss South Africa hopeful, Suleiman Carrim entered: baby-faced, flush with money and disturbingly light on memory. Senthumule, to be fair, did not entirely deny the BBL drama. She turned around so the (dis)honourable members of Parliament could see for themselves.

Carrim, meanwhile, did not arrive with a polished or disciplined version. He came across as a man trying to outsmart himself, outrun his own denials, then collapse under the weight of his testimony. In his version, he advanced R10-million to Matlala’s Medicare24 Tshwane after being told it had secured a R360-million SAPS health tender. No contract. No paperwork. Just faith and a handshake pretending to be commerce.

Then the story shifted from dubious to absurd. Evidence before the commission suggested that Carrim-linked companies paid more than R12-million, including payments he said he had not authorised and only discovered at the commission. Even better, part of the money moving through this circus appears to have ended up in the hands of Hangwani Maumela, the businessman linked to the Tembisa Hospital tender scandal. Carrim admitted to paying Maumela at Matlala’s request, then struggled for an explanation, only to find none.

To make matters worse, Matlala owed Carrim money, yet instead of securing his repayment, he became an ice boy. He told the commission he had received only R1.7-million before the SAPS tender was terminated, and that to this day he hasn’t sued. Bless him. The commission also mentioned that R360-million in public tender funds had been paid into Carrim’s account. Bizarre does not begin to cover it.

Brown, bags and buffoonery

Carrim’s answers did not exactly rescue the national IQ. Just when one thought the plot had exhausted its capacity for insult, up popped Brown Mogotsi again. Yes, that Brown. The ever-available courier of whispers, bottle tops and imagined influence.

Carrim told the commission that he approached Brown to verify whether Matlala’s SAPS tender was still valid, and that Mogotsi allegedly assured him it was. So let us pause there. In a country with procurement systems, legal instruments and state records, a man entrusted with millions appears to have relied on Brown as his due diligence department. Imagine.

At this point, one no longer needs a whiteboard to connect the dots. One needs prayer. Then headache tablets. Ozempic to lose backside fat. Perhaps even a constitutional sedative. Because what we are watching on television looks less like a fact-finding mission and more like KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi’s so-called Big Five cartel wandering into the lounge one by one. They are introducing themselves in real time. Meanwhile, the commissioners are left to perform the detective work the state itself failed to do.

And we, the mere mortals without Matlala’s soft loans or Carrim’s R360-million bounty and R12-million advances, are left broke, data-less and mocked. The powerful testify, shrug and walk away. The police should be waiting outside the inquiries to arrest the miscreants. That is justice: consequence, not spectacle.

Till next week, my man. Send me somewhere: no BBL, money transfers and handshakes are allowed. DM

Bhekisisa Mncube is an award-winning author and columnist.

This story first appeared in our weekly DM168 newspaper, available countrywide for R35.