Matlala: cash bribes to Cele, threats from Mkhwanazi during SAPS contract woes
Corruption Watch
10 months ago
The parliamentary
ad hoc committee investigating allegations of police corruption
has heard how Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala solicited help from all fronts in relation to his business with the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the alleged harassment by the political killings task team (PKTT). Matlala approached former police minister Bheki Cele, suspended deputy national commissioner Lieutenant-General Shadrack Sibiya, and KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) provincial police commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, he said.
Matlala is at the centre of a controversial, but short-lived, tender that is under investigation for alleged irregularities. His company Medicare24 won a R360-million contract in July 2024 to provide medical and wellness services for members of the SAPS at its college in Pretoria. He told
the committee that based on this, he was targeted for extortion and frustrated with technicalities in an effort to get him to bankroll SAPS senior officials. While this was going on, he also became a person of interest for the PKTT, which was probing the kidnapping of businessman Jerry Boshoga.
Business with the SAPS
Matlala first leased a healthcare facility on the premises of the SAPS Pretoria college in 2022. He denied it when questioned whether this move was in anticipation of securing the lucrative tender two years later. In January 2024, he said, he met Sibiya when he approached him for assistance with facilitating the eviction of medical staff who continued to occupy the facility despite the previous contract having ended. Sibiya was the acting national police commissioner at the time while national commissioner Major-General Fannie Masemola was on leave.
His troubles worsened, over the next few months, following the award of the contract. Over time he noticed that he was not getting the cooperation he relied on from Lieutenant-General Lineo Nkhuoa, SAPS head of human resources. As the end user of Medicare24’s services, Nkhuoa was expected to facilitate the furnishing of purchase orders associated with the project, but was not forthcoming with these, and this in turn delayed payments to Medicare24.
While this was going on, there was also a police investigation into the Boshoga case, culminating in the raid of Matlala’s home in Pretoria on 6 December 2024. On this occasion, he claims, his family was harassed and several firearms belonging to his other business, Cat VIP Security, were confiscated by balaclava-wearing PKTT members. The next raid happened at his Cat VIP business premises, leading him to finally take action to address what he deemed as harassment.
Help
When his efforts to get this sorted out were not successful, help came from several quarters, one of them being a suggestion from a friend, Bongani Mpungose, who facilitated a meeting with Cele in Durban. Upon telling the former minister of his troubles, Matlala believes Cele phoned the head of crime intelligence Lieutenant-General Dumisani Khumalo, who is also the project lead of the PKTT. He overheard Cele say over the phone that he (Matlala) was caught up in a “Zulu war” that had nothing to do with him. The inference he drew from this was that Cele was probably referring to the PKTT being operated by Khumalo, with Mkhwanazi also being involved as it originated in his province and there were factional fights in senior SAPS circles over the task team.
After the call, Matlala was then told by Cele that the matter was resolved and that he could fetch his firearms from the Brooklyn police station, where they had been kept. For his troubles, Cele was given the first tranche of cash totalling R300 000. Mpungose was also paid, although Matlala did not disclose the amount given to him.
Cele would receive R200 000 on one more occasion, while also enjoying other favours from Matlala including accommodation at his upmarket apartment in Menlyn and transportation around Gauteng when his family was in the province. Matlala told the committee that he characterised Cele as an extortionist because he would always call him when he needed money – naming his price as R1-million – and when he decided to stop bankrolling him, he believes the punishment was the arrest in May 2025 for the attempted murder of his former girlfriend, Tebogo Thobejane.
Cele would also later facilitate a meeting with Mkhwanazi at which Matlala would ask for help with his challenges. He said he met Mkhwanazi at The Pearls in Umhlanga early in 2025, with KZN head of the Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigations, Major-General Lesetja Senona, in tow. Matlala said he wanted Senona – who has been implicated in the Madlanga commission for helping to facilitate the award of the contract to Matlala and for frustrating the PKTT’s investigations – because they have a close relationship.
At this meeting, Mkhwanazi promised to intervene on Matlala’s behalf, but warned him that Nkhuoa was corrupt and relentless in demanding kickbacks from service providers. He also made a veiled threat, according to Matlala, that he could “take him out” if he ever crossed him. When questioned about what Mkhwanazi got in return for his offer of help, Matlala said he expected nothing. A proposition was later made to Matlala that Mkhwanazi may have played him on this occasion, which proposition he accepted.
The other source of help, also in December, came in the form of North West businessman Brown Mogotsi, who called Matlala and identified himself as working in the office of suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu. Mogotsi offered to help Matlala with his PKTT woes as well as with the contract, which was under scrutiny at this point and on the verge of being cancelled. Mogotsi repeatedly suggested that the Independent Police Investigative Directorate be roped in to address the harassment claims that Matlala had made, to help get the PKTT off his back.
Mogotsi was also meant to facilitate a meeting with Mchunu to discuss the matter of the contract, but this never happened, according to Matlala. Trusting his promises of help, however, Matlala paid a total of around R150 000 to Mogotsi on several occasions. When Mogotsi promised to secure a team of investigators to probe the 6 December incident, he told Matlala that because they were not Gauteng-based, they would have to be accommodated. Furthermore, Mogotsi expected Matlala to finance the transportation and accommodation of a group of the former’s associates who would attend the ANC’s 8 January celebration in Khayelitsha, Cape Town.
It would soon become apparent to Matlala, however, that the transactional relationship was one sided, and that Mogotsi was failing to keep his end of the bargain. As did Cele, he stopped payments to Mogotsi.
“I would say Cele is an extortionist and Mogotsi is a con artist,” said Matlala.
The veracity of Matlala’s evidence was tested on numerous occasions during his testimony, with a common theme of him being motivated by revenge for both his incarceration and the cancellation of his contract.
Villain or victim?
The topic of Matlala’s background and upbringing also came up during the questioning by committee members. He replied that he was born and raised in Mamelodi by a single mother who later disappeared from his life following a traumatic experience of sexual assault, leading him to be homeless for a large part of his youth. After completing matric, which is his highest level of education, he started “selling goods” to support himself. He acknowledged his extensive rap sheet as pointed out by members, saying that it did not preclude him from seeking business opportunities that include tenders with government.
He denied that he was involved in the drug trade, despite admitting that Jerry Boshoga, with whom he shares a close friendship, is himself a drug dealer. In fact, Matlala testified that he learned from Boshoga’s brother that on the day of his alleged kidnapping, the two of them had gone to collect large containers of a drug-manufacturing ingredient. When questioned on the implications of this kind of friendship on his moral standing, Matlala said he lives by a principle of not judging how other people around him live.
He was further questioned on his lavish lifestyle and said he maintains it with his legitimate businesses after years of living a life of crime. His previous conviction for the possession of stolen goods in the early 2000s was one of the grounds on which Matlala was denied bail after his arrest. He told the committee, however, that he believes that there is more to it than that, and that he is being targeted by influential individuals who want him to suffer for refusing to share the spoils of his tender.
Proof of this, he added, was that the contract had gone back to Metropolitan, the company that held it for years before him. He said it was no coincidence that Nkhuoa attended the wedding of one of Metropolitan’s directors after the reinstatement of its relationship with the SAPS.
“If that had been me, there would be trouble. But because it is their darling, no-one is saying anything,” Matlala said.
Even the police officers who have been investigating him have fabricated evidence to his detriment, he added. The recording played at the Madlanga commission in October during the testimonies of in-camera witnesses who are the investigators in his case, he said, was manipulated to sound real when it actually never happened. In it, the investigators claim Matlala confessed to having bribed Sibiya with R80 000 to help pay for his son’s engagement party, in return for his help.
Matlala told the committee that his only crime was that he did not submit to demands from certain quarters of the SAPS to maintain kickbacks.
Committee chairperson Soviet Lekganyane announced at the end of proceedings that Matlala was the last witness to be heard for this year, and that the committee would resume its hearings in the new year owing to an extension of its term granted by the Office of the Speaker of Parliament