By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi was testifying on Thursday, 18 September 2025, on the second day of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.
Mkhwanazi provided more details on the issue he started testifying about the day before – the disbandment of KwaZulu-Natal’s Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).
He detailed on Thursday how several senior state officials were unsure what was happening after Police Minister Senzo Mchunu “disestablished” the PKTT.
He read a letter, dated 10 June 2025, from KwaZulu-Natal’s director of public prosecutions, advocate Elaine Harrison, in which she said: “There has been no formal communication to the office of the national Director of Public Prosecutions as well as my office on this issue.
“It is of concern that this office remains unsure of what the correction position is regarding this team.”
Harrison had also pointed out there would be local government elections next year. “We are aware that all elections are preceded by violent political activity,” she wrote.
This included murders and attempted murders within, as well as between, political parties.
Mkhwanazi then turned his attention to Parliament, accusing members of parliament of mishandling sensitive information, undermining the work of SAPS’s Crime Intelligence and compromising investigations.
Mkhwanazi accused Dianne Kohler Barnard of using her position to fuel public attacks against the Crime Intelligence unit instead of following parliamentary protocols.
“What we see here is a person who has a legal obligation to keep her mouth shut and go to the joint standing committee and present, and ventilate, and hold the division to account. But she does not use that platform, but goes publicly and discloses this,” Mkhwanazi said.
He warned that Barnard’s actions could expose state secrets and compromise investigations.
“The risk of this is that it forces members who are within Crime Intelligence who are in public space to defend themselves and divulge all the secrets of the state that they are aware of,” he added.
Turning to Faziel Adams, Mkhwanazi accused the NCC MP of gaining unauthorised access to sensitive intelligence and using it to open criminal cases against Crime Intelligence without the necessary oversight.
“This is a person that I said, commissioner, is not within the Joint Standing Committee of Intelligence in Parliament. But he speaks, he opens a criminal case about the matters of Crime Intelligence,” Mkhwanazi told the commission.
Mkhwanazi dismissed Adams’s allegations about the abuse of Crime Intelligence’s secret fund account, saying Adams had no authority over its budget or oversight of its operations.
“Adams further claims that there is an abuse of the secret fund account. He doesn’t have oversight. He doesn’t even have the budget allocated because he is not part of that committee. But he claims that there is an abuse of the secret fund account at Crime Intelligence,” Mkhwanazi charged.
However, Barnard futed the claims labelling them as outrageous, defamatory, and entirely baseless.
“I am issuing this statement to categorically and in the strongest possible terms refute the outrageous, defamatory, and entirely baseless allegations made against me by the Provincial Police Commissioner of KZN, suggesting my involvement in a criminal syndicate and the leaking of sensitive information.”
Adams meanwhile reacted to Mkhwanazi’s testimony: “I don’t know why General Mkhwanazi is so fixated on me. Is he fixated because I have been the reason his buddy General Dumisani Khumalo is now before the court for alleged fraud and corruption? I don’t understand.”
The head of Crime Intelligence at the time was Khumalo, who had also been involved in overseeing the PKTT.
In March this year the SAPS warned Parliament that Khumalo was being targeted for cleaning up the Crime Intelligence arena.
Parliament heard that this involved false accusations, including that he was appointing people aligned with him.
Just a few months after that, in June, Khumalo was arrested along with six colleagues, in connection with an allegedly irregular appointment.
They denied the accusations against them. Idac carried out the arrests.
Mkhwanazi effectively said on Thursday that Khumalo – and Crime Intelligence – was targeted as one of the ways to frustrate investigations into the criminal cartel.