By Molefe Seeletsa and Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Whistle-blower and former South African Police Service (Saps) employee Patricia Morgan-Mashale has dismissed claims that she spreads falsehoods, asserting that all her disclosures are evidence-based.
On Tuesday, Morgan-Mashale testified before Parliament’s ad hoc committee at the Good Hope Chamber in Cape Town.
The inquiry is probing alleged criminal infiltration and political interference within South Africa’s law enforcement structures.
Patricia Morgan-Mashale clarifies her appointment
Morgan-Mashale disputed the testimony of Crime Intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo, who alleged that her hiring at Saps was improper.
She told MPs that she joined Saps in 2007 as an administrative clerk in the Free State and remained in the role until 2022.
Soon after her employment began, rumours emerged suggesting she had been fired by the Department of Health.
Additionally, allegations arose that her appointment was influenced by a personal relationship with former Free State deputy police commissioner Eric Nkuna after she had briefly assisted in his office for two weeks while his secretary was on leave.
“I didn’t even know who the deputy provincial commissioner was, “Morgan-Mashale said.
Although she had been recruited through the usual Saps hiring procedures, Morgan-Mashale said she was later subjected to departmental charges claiming she had not revealed her dismissal from the Department of Health.
She eventually prevailed in the disciplinary proceedings by providing evidence that she had formally submitted the necessary paperwork to end her nursing studies.
“The Department of Health are the ones who failed to capture [my] termination,” she remarked.
Morgan-Mashale also revealed that she sued the Saps employee responsible for spreading the rumours and won R50 000 in damages.
She added that Khumalo could easily verify the documents related to her appointment.
Exposing illegal firearms sales
Morgan-Mashale detailed how she uncovered illegal firearms meant for destruction that were instead licenced to Saps’ central firearm registry and sold to criminal syndicates.
In 2018, she made a protected disclosure after discovering that a warrant officer at a police storage facility was selling firearms.
“He was selling the firearms back to the black market. There were names of police officers who are part of this, from police station level up to head office.”
“There were names of dealers who bought the firearms. I printed all that information,” Morgan-Mashale said.
Over the years, those she implicated in corruption on social media have attempted to discredit her, labelling her an “information peddler”.
She stated that this description has a negative connotation.
“I always make sure that all the information that I share, I must at least have evidence to support the information, “she said in response to the allegations.
Morgan-Mashale also referenced an August 2025 judgment by the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein, where deputy national police commissioner Shadrack Sibiya sought an interdict against her for alleged defamatory statements on social media.
The court ultimately ruled in her favour, and Sibiya’s case was dismissed.
“The judge made a decision in that case that as a whistle-blower, I’m entitled to expose corruption. I don’t see the reason to choose sides because corruption is corruption.”
Calls for stronger whistle-blower protection
When asked for recommendations to strengthen whistle-blower protection, Morgan-Mashale highlighted the challenges whistle-blowers face when coming forward.
“When you are a mother, and you last had a normal sit-down with your children four years ago because you’re in exile, you cannot meet under normal circumstances with your children, then the government must really sit down and take notice because I’m not the only whistle-blower who is living in these circumstance, “she told the committee.
“When you report wrongdoing and open cases, and the people who reported you for the wrongdoing against us are still in positions of power, then it means our government is not serious to protect whistle-blowers.”
“That’s the reason why whistle-blowers are afraid to come forward, and they instead give the information to us. We have made the decision that I cannot be silent about this, “Morgan-Mashale continued.
She stressed that her only desire is for government action to protect whistle-blowers. I don’t want recognition. I don’t want compensation. I just want a normal life.
“The government must come forward and say anyone who retaliates or kills a whistle-blower must be harshly dealt with. We cannot go on like this.”
Top cop ‘covertly assassinated’ in 2021 after uncovering billion-rand corruption
A former colleague of Deputy National Police Commissioner of Crime Detection Sindile Mfazi has alleged that he was covertly assassinated in 2021 after he uncovered corruption among senior officers, with the murder made to look like Mfazi had died due to Covid-19.
This is according to Pilasande Dotyeni, a former Crime Intelligence analyst with the South African Police Service (SAPS), who addressed Parliament’s ad hoc committee on Tuesday, 3 February 2026.
He told the ad hoc committee he was making a “May Day” call for it to “do something” in relation to what happened to Mfazi, whom he said was “buried under a lie of Covid-19” and died choking on his own blood.
Asked what the status of the investigation into Mfazi’s death was, Dotyeni said: “Nothing is happening, it’s dying a slow death.”
He was in the police service between 2004 and 2011 and was based in the Eastern Cape. Dotyeni remained in contact with Mfazi after that. Mfazi died in July 2021 at the age of 59.
On 9 July 2021, a government press statement, headed “SAPS Deputy Commissioner succumbs to COVID-19”, described him as “a highly decorated senior officer, who served… for 39 years”.
Dotyeni spoke at length about his background on Tuesday before the committee. His typed submission, one of two documents he presented to the committee, added allegations about his last communication with Mfazi.
“In our final encrypted conversation just days before his death, General Mfazi confided in me that he had unearthed a complex web of corruption centred on emergency procurement tenders – specifically, PPE (personal protective equipment) contracts valued at over R1.6-billion – being channelled through irregular mechanisms, including the Crime Intelligence secret fund,” Dotyeni’s submission read.
“His findings reportedly pointed to a coordinated siphoning operation involving actors inside SAPS Headquarters.”
The National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate subsequently, in 2022, announced that 15 people had been arrested “in connection with alleged corruption” in awarding R1.9-million in police PPE contracts.
It was not clear whether that was part of what Mfazi was said to have exposed.
According to Dotyeni’s submission, in their final exchange Mfazi had warned that “people very high up”, including in the SAPS, were involved in the R1.6-billion PPE contracts that had been channelled via “irregular mechanisms”.
Parliament’s ad hoc committee is investigating accusations that a drug cartel has infiltrated SA’s criminal justice system, politics and private security. So far, it has been hearing from witnesses, including senior state officials and policing figures.