By Johnathan Paoli
Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu came under renewed scrutiny in Parliament on Wednesday, but MPs appeared reluctant to make a hard finding of corruption against him, saying allegations linking him to Brown Mogotsi and alleged criminal syndicates remained unproven.
The matter was raised during the ad hoc committee’s deliberations on the alleged capture of the criminal justice system, where ANC MP Mdumiseni Ntuli said the committee’s draft report should avoid conclusions not backed by sufficient evidence, even where questions remained over the limits of ministerial powers.
He said, however, that Mchunu had exceeded his legal authority in relation to the controversial disbandment of the Political Killings Task Team.
“The minister, in my view, misconstrued his powers as there was no empowering provision in law that gave him the authority to unilaterally decide that the post should not be filled,” he said.
But Ntuli also said the report should explicitly state that evidence linking Mchunu to alleged criminal syndicates remained inconclusive.
“The evidence of its existence and the coordination is inconclusive in terms of what has appeared before us. We can’t stand up and firmly say we can say with certainty that it does exist.”
He also rejected conclusions suggesting corrupt relationships between Mchunu, and political fixer Mogotsi.
“The evidence of corruption between Mr Brown Mogotsi and Minister Mchunu is in my own view still unproven, as well as inconclusive. It relies largely on what one can call speculation and conjecture, not necessarily substantive evidence,” he said.
Ntuli added that while no definitive conclusions could be reached, it may be necessary to carry out further investigation to determine whether any link of that kind exists.
ANC MP Xola Nqola proposed wide-ranging institutional reforms, calling for a formal framework governing the movement of personnel between law enforcement agencies.
“The Minister of Justice and the Minister of Police must also develop a framework that guides the movement of personnel in between the different enforcement organs of the state,” Nqola said.
He said that Section 27 of the National Prosecuting Authority Act should be amended because the threshold for referrals to the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) was too low.
“The allegation is that IDAC, through that Section 27, is now being weaponised as an agency that fights individual battles instead of fighting corruption,” Nqola said.
uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP David Skosana insisted the Political Killings Task Team should be retained despite previous criticism over its costs.
“You know now seven people have been killed as we speak here. Politicians from different parties have been killed. We still need PKTT,” he said.
Skosana also supported reforms to Crime Intelligence and tighter oversight of the Secret Service Account.
“An oversight of the Secret Service account needs to be attended to because it was a cause for concern here that Crime Intelligence is infested with some dodgy characters,” he said.
ActionSA MP Dereleen James said that weaknesses in the Minister of Police’s office exposed broader governance failures.
“The IPID matter, the informality of the Chief of Staff role, collectively point to a minister’s office operating without the adequate institutional guardrails,” James said.
She recommended stricter security controls.
“The appointment of Chief of Staff and senior officials in ministerial offices within the security cluster be subject to security vetting at the top secret level as a precondition,” James said.
Meanwhile, DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach cautioned committee members against overstepping Parliament’s constitutional role. She said the committee had no authority to determine criminal guilt and that months of hearings had produced information rather than admissible evidence capable of securing prosecutions.
Committee chair Soviet Lekganyane closed proceedings by confirming that the committee’s administrative team would incorporate members’ submissions into a revised report.
“The final draft will be available by Monday so we can meet on Wednesday next week so that members can have time to go through the final draft and if there are certain matters that you want to raise with the content team,” Lekganyane said.
The committee is expected to finalise and adopt its report next week before forwarding it to the National Assembly, where Parliament will debate its findings and recommendations.
INSIDE POLITICS
