By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The suspended KwaZulu-Natal Hawks head Major General Lesetja Senona has resigned with immediate effect, bringing an abrupt end to his longest service.
Fullview learnt that Senona resigned on June 19.
Senona joined the South African Police Service (SAPS) in 1985.
His tenure, however, came under intense scrutiny after he was called to testify before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry earlier this year.
It remains unclear whether Senona’s resignation will affect any ongoing disciplinary processes or investigations arising from the commission’s proceedings.
His resignation decision also centre’s around the rejection of his retirement notice.
Senona has been testifying at the commission in recent weeks over the missing R200 million cocaine from the Hawks offices in Port Shepstone.
It was stolen from the poorly secured Hawks building, in what is now believed to have been an inside job.
The cocaine should not have been stored there, but the commission has heard there were space constraints elsewhere.
The stolen R200-million Port Shepstone cocaine is one of two major controversial drug crackdowns the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry has focused on. The other involves a consignment worth about R286-million that was intercepted in July 2021 in Aeroton, an industrial area in the south of Johannesburg. It later emerged R55-million of that cocaine was missing from a state forensic science laboratory.
There was also a controversy around his links to underworld figure Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala, whom he said he first met at his wedding.
Matlala faces various criminal charges and accusations, including that he is a member of the drug cartel that has infiltrated the state.
His resignation now leaves the Hawks in KZN without a permanent provincial head at a time when the commission continues investigating allegations of corruption, political interference and organised crime infiltration within South Africa’s criminal justice system.