By Johnathan Paoli
Former City of Johannesburg official Mesuli Mlandu has told Parliament’s ad hoc committee that suspended SAPS deputy national commissioner for crime detection Shadrack Sibiya was unlawfully elevated to a powerful post, with the process allegedly linked to a report he says was signed off during Herman Mashaba’s term as Johannesburg mayor.
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Testifying as a witness before the committee wrapped up its hearings for the week, Mlandu said Sibiya’s appointment as head of the City’s Group Forensic and Investigation Services (GFIS) was “rogue, clandestine and unlawful” and should, he argued, have triggered criminal scrutiny long before Sibiya’s later appointment and promotion within the South African Police Service.
“This is worse. You’ve got a bogus head of department operating in the City of Johannesburg for five years, controlling R580 million of public funds, and nobody is charged. If this is not criminal, then I don’t know what is,” Mlandu said.
Mlandu, a former executive director in the City of Johannesburg and later a special projects adviser in the city manager’s office, said he first became aware of alleged irregularities through whistleblowers and internal documents between 2018 and 2022.
He told the committee that Sibiya was lawfully appointed only as a unit head — the equivalent of a director — following an interview process in November 2016.
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“That appointment letter of 8 November 2016 is the only lawful appointment that exists. Everything else that follows is a fabrication,” Mlandu said.
According to his testimony, within two months of that appointment, Sibiya was already presenting himself as a head of department, despite no recruitment process, council approval or fixed-term contract, steps Mlandu said were required for a senior managerial appointment.
Mlandu said a legal opinion obtained by the city at the time explicitly warned that Sibiya could not be appointed as a head of department without a fresh recruitment process and council approval.
“The legal opinion was clear. If you want to make him an HOD, you must advertise, he must apply, and council must approve. None of that happened,” he told the committee.
Mlandu alleged that, despite this advice, a report signed in January 2017 effectively “declared” Sibiya to be the head of GFIS.
Crucially, he said, Sibiya’s own High Court affidavit later claimed that this elevation was done through a report signed by then mayor Herman Mashaba.
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“If you’ve ever worked in local government, you know this. A mayor has no appointing powers. Even if there was a report signed by Mr Mashaba, that appointment would still be bogus,” he said, arguing that any elevation to a head-of-department level would still have required a council-approved recruitment process.
Mashaba, now leader of ActionSA, has previously denied wrongdoing in relation to appointments during his mayoral term.
Mlandu further told the committee that Sibiya had failed a competency assessment for the unit head role after his appointment had already been issued — something he said should have invalidated the appointment entirely.
Despite this, Sibiya allegedly continued to operate as a head of department for five years, drawing the salary and exercising the authority of an HOD.
“That’s where the R3.5 million fraud comes from. He earned a head-of-department salary without lawful authority,” Mlandu claimed, also linking the matter to about R580 million in alleged irregular expenditure.
He said an independent legal review commissioned by the city in 2022 recommended a full-scale investigation, Sibiya’s suspension and referral of the matter to oversight bodies, including the public protector and the inspector-general of intelligence.
Mlandu alleged the report was blocked from reaching council under the previous political administration.
“The moment that report was handed to the mayor and the speaker, it was stopped. That created space for an unopposed High Court application so that he could later come and say ‘I was cleared by a court’,” he said.
Mlandu also told the committee that he had personally alerted the ministers of police and cooperative governance in mid-2022, attaching detailed reports and supporting documents.
He produced an email from the office of then police minister Bheki Cele acknowledging receipt, which he said contradicted public claims that no such reports had been received.
He said that proper vetting by SAPS before Sibiya’s July 2022 appointment, and his subsequent promotion in July 2023, would have revealed the unresolved municipal investigations.
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Sibiya has denied wrongdoing. Mlandu disputed Sibiya’s assertions that he had been cleared by various processes, saying key evidence was never investigated or was concealed.
The committee adjourned for the week, with a meeting scheduled for Monday where next week’s programme and other issues will be discussed.
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