Last week’s hearings before parliament’s ad hoc committee produced a single, immediate conclusion: the dispute over the political killings task team (PKTT) in KwaZulu-Natal is inseparable from a larger, documented pattern of contested appointments, opaque resourcing and alleged retaliatory conduct in SAPS, as laid out in sworn affidavits and expert submissions now before the committee.
Over several days, the committee held public participation hearings which heard from civil‑society researchers, legal advocates and former senior SAPS officials. Collectively, this evidence has shifted the inquiry away from the narrow legality of a single ministerial directive to disband the PKTT and towards a broader assessment of how executive authority, financial control and internal governance are exercised in SAPS.
The most contentious exchanges centred on evidence presented by Dr Jean Redpath of the Dullah Omar Institute, who placed provincial crime statistics alongside the operational life of the PKTT. In her written and oral submissions, Redpath noted that while the task team had secured convictions, the overall murder count in KwaZulu‑Natal increased from about 4,395 cases in the 2018/2019 financial year to about 6,947 by 2022/2023, an increase of roughly 58%. Over the same period, the national murder increase was estimated at about 24%. Her argument was that, given the scale of resources committed to the PKTT, its performance could not be divorced from broader public‑safety outcomes in the province, particularly where ordinary violent crime continued to rise.
Members from the MK Party, ANC and IFP challenged the relevance and the framing of those statistics. MK Party MP Sibonelo Nomvalo repeatedly accused Redpath of using “wrong figures” by relying on province‑wide murder data for a unit tasked with investigating politically motivated killings. Committee chairperson Soviet Lekganyane intervened to caution against what he described as the undermining of a unit that President Cyril Ramaphosa had been briefed was doing “a wonderful job”.
IFP MP Albert Mncwango argued that the PKTT had been established to address a specific problem and that measuring it against overall murder rates was “out of context”. Opposition MPs, including DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach, responded that disagreement over interpretation did not negate the value of the data placed before the committee.
Systemic indicators
The submissions from the Dullah Omar Institute went further, situating the PKTT debate within systemic indicators of policing decline. Murder rates nationally rose from 29 per 100,000 in 2011 to 46 per 100,000 in the most recent year; public trust in the police fell from 46% in 2011 to 22% in the past three years; and the number of detectives declined from about 27,000 in 2014 to 16,000 in 2025.
Convictions and custodial sentences for serious crime dropped from 243,000 in 2001/2002 to 52,000 in 2024/2025, while civil claims against SAPS escalated to R15.5bn in 2023/2024. These figures were presented to argue that specialised task teams such as the PKTT cannot be evaluated in isolation from the broader collapse in investigative capacity.
The Institute for Security Studies drew the committee’s attention to annexures indicating that cumulative authorisations linked to the PKTT, including vehicles, accommodation, overtime and daily stipends, approached R460m, excluding salaries. It noted that such expenditure does not appear clearly disaggregated in SAPS annual reports or the police budget vote, complicating parliament’s ability to exercise effective fiscal oversight under the Public Finance Management Act. The Dullah Omar submission also flagged anomalies in the 2025 police vote, where R8.6bn was recorded under “Other” personnel expenditure for eight posts at a unit cost of R1bn each, raising questions about whether task team allocations were being routed through opaque budget lines.
Delayed responses to warnings
Civil‑society organisations extended this critique to parliament itself. The African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum argued that oversight failures are systemic, pointing to delayed responses to earlier warnings of political interference and weak follow‑up on committee recommendations. It recommended statutory reforms, including a National Police Board to oversee merit‑based appointments, security of tenure for operational commanders, and a requirement that ministerial directions be issued in writing and entered into a public register.
Accountability Now, represented by advocate Paul Hoffman SC, placed the current inquiry within a longer constitutional arc, reminding MPs that the Constitutional Court ordered parliament in 2011 to ensure an adequately independent anti‑corruption capacity. Hoffman argued that parliament’s failure to give full effect to that judgment has left investigative functions vulnerable to executive influence, a vulnerability now visible in disputes over task teams, appointments and ministerial “directions”.
The most detailed operational evidence came from former crime intelligence official Tiyani Hlungwani, whose sworn affidavits and annexures now form a substantial part of the committee record. Hlungwani alleged he was instructed in 2017 to facilitate a R45m payment from the crime intelligence secret service account for a surveillance “grabber” device he believed to be grossly overpriced and linked to factional political purposes.
He testified that his refusal to authorise the payment and his subsequent report to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate halted the transaction but precipitated his transfer, marginalisation and eventual dismissal. He further alleged that senior crime intelligence appointments were made without valid security clearances and that disciplinary boards of inquiry were used selectively against officials who resisted unlawful instructions.
His affidavits also describe how disciplinary hearings were consolidated and transferred between bargaining councils and the CCMA, with rulings overturned under questionable circumstances, which he characterised as judicial corruption.
Hlungwani’s testimony triggered procedural disputes when he made allegations against sitting MPs, leading to debates over recusal and the proper conduct of questioning. Similar concerns about witness handling arose when other whistleblowers described logistical failures, delayed subpoenas and inadequate protection, prompting criticism from MPs across party lines about parliament’s administrative capacity to support its own inquiry.
Placed alongside earlier testimony from KwaZulu‑Natal police commissioner Lt‑Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu, the week’s evidence deepens rather than narrows the inquiry. It reinforces a pattern already emerging before the ad hoc committee and the Madlanga commission: that disputes over the PKTT sit within a wider ecosystem of alleged political interference, contested authority over policing resources, and fragile internal accountability mechanisms in SAPS.
Whether the committee translates this growing body of statistics, sworn evidence and expert analysis into enforceable institutional recommendations will determine the long‑term significance of the inquiry. At stake is not only the future of a single task team but also whether parliament is able to embed practical safeguards that limit informal executive influence over policing while preserving democratic accountability.
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