By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Caption: Parliament’s ad hoc committee heard from DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard, who was called as a witness on 5 February 2026. (Photo: Zwelethemba Kostile / RSA Parliament).
The Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Dianne Kohler Barnard testified before the Ad Hoc Committee investigating allegations of criminal infiltration, corruption and political interference in the justice system.
KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi made the allegations in press conference on the 6th of July 2025.
Mkhwanazi also subsequently alleged that Kohler Barnard had been reckless with Crime Intelligence information, even suggesting that she broke the law and should be jailed.
During Thursday’s ad hoc committee proceedings, Kohler Barnard insisted she had not leaked or been negligent with information and countered that she acted so as not to “be part of a cover-up”.
She testified that when Mkhwanazi made the cartel infiltration allegations last year, he came across as a “very frustrated” and let-down policeman.
However, Kohler Barnard was not entirely sure of his motives.
A large part of the proceedings focused on the secret Crime Intelligence slush fund. For years, there have been repeated accusations of the fund being looted.
Richard Mdluli, a former head of the Crime Intelligence unit, is facing charges in relation to this; he has pleaded not guilty.
Kohler Barnard testified that “year after year” she and other MPs had referenced corruption and “the misuse of hidden funds”.
She added: “Much of what has been revealed has been going on for years… and a blind eye is turned.”
Kohler Barnard said there were scores of honest police officers, but there was also “a core element that is just there to loot”. She said the Crime Intelligence slush fund posed a constant problem, and intelligence oversight heads, when they zoomed in on it, faced resistance.
MPs grilled Kohler Barnard on where exactly she had gotten information on the Crime Intelligence property purchases.
She said she first read about the Pretoria hotel purchase in the News24 article and, responding to a question, said she did not know the journalist who wrote it.
She said the Crime Intelligence hotel purchase saga was reminiscent of what had happened under Mdluli.
She emphasised the strict confidentiality of the JSCI, noting that she had always tried to raise concerns about corruption through the proper channels.
Kohler-Barnard has been a DA MP since 2004 and part of Parliament’s police committee since 2006, with some interruptions between 2015 and 2017.
In 2015, Kohler Barnard was demoted as the DA’s shadow police minister over an inappropriate social media issue – she had shared a post that basically praised apartheid leader PW Botha.
Kohler Barnard has been a member of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) since it was constituted at the start of April 2025. She is also one of the DA’s alternate representatives in the ad hoc committee, meaning she stands in when a permanent member is absent.