The Mkhwanazi evidence

 Published in the Sunday Times, 12 October 2025, as The true test of Mkhwanazi’s evidence

General Mkhwanazi has crafted a space for himself as an opinion maker in the management and direction of policing in South Africa. He has assumed an authority status on police practice in a country where shallow policy understanding rules professional spaces. Endowed with the moral force of fighting criminality and the syndicates that sustain it, he has accumulated sufficient social capital to be a towering moral voice on policing, and by default, the essence of public service. His command of policing practice and theory earned him the endearment of an otherwise politically leadership-deficient society. 

While Mkhwanazi has raised several thematic issues regarding the administration of the state, he comes across as a well-groomed securocrat. By his own admission, he reveres the securocratic approach to policing, which was his foundational training and socialisation as a police officer. He has had three national opportunities and platforms, indicating his discontent with the media and how, as he argues, it has been captured. 

 

The General decries the human rights-driven policing approach that emerged in post-apartheid South Africa. His preference for secrecy endangers the value of transparency in government and governance. General Mkhwanazi should recognise that the freedom of the press and the openness of Parliament have provided him with the platform he has effectively used to reveal the alleged corruption in the RSA’s criminal justice system. 

 

One of the fundamental roles of South Africa’s democratic and constitutional order is to provide the tools and conditions necessary for its public service to implement the current government’s lawful policies loyally. This does not exclude the police from ensuring that the media’s rights to report on all matters of public concern are adequately protected. Such responsibility to the media should not be viewed as a means to an authoritarian end, but as an expression of South Africa’s democratic character. 

 

As the glory of exposing a possible collusion between certain executive authorities and the criminal underworld settles in his person, we, as a society, should pay attention to the significant and dangerous gains this process might be accruing to a securocratic-minded police cohort longing for a ‘skop-en-donder’ police force. The General should ensure that the confidence of his whistleblowing does not intoxicate him into thinking like a junta leader. 

Authentic public service leadership in South Africa is built on a social contract that respects the entirety of the Constitution—it is the country’s supreme law. Fundamental to the RSA constitution are human dignity, social and economic justice, and human rights as the basis of exercising any authority, especially public power.

 

The democratic order that RSA establishes does not permit public servants, particularly in the criminal justice system and national security services, to decide not to disclose certain information to the public, even if it meets the criteria for public concern. SAPS’s culture of secrecy has evolved into a cult of impunity, relying on corrupt enablers, some of whom may include senior figures or those close to them.

 

Likewise, General Mkhwanazi and the transparency activists should recognise that while advocating for transparency builds credibility and encourages the public service to express their genuine opinions and feelings on relevant government or governance issues, it does not grant them unlimited permission to irresponsibly reveal everything. Amidst a high corruption index within society, fierce debates over what is private or public highlight the urgency of making decisions that serve both the current needs and future generations.

 

In politics, when public information about matters of public concern is due but not released, a crack appears in the foundation of the state-citizen relationship. The hype surrounding the General Mkhwanazi exposés should serve as a foundation for fostering a transparent culture within the public service. It should be so vibrant that delivering bad news becomes a regular part of doing government business.

 

The commission is expected to determine whether those the General alleges acted unlawfully did indeed commit crimes. To date, and possibly because the actual criminal dockets are live for adjudication by courts, General Mkhwanazi has focused most of his evidence on motive. As a society, we hope to understand what was permissible, prescribed, and proscribed in Minister Mchunu’s actions when he ordered the closure of the Political Killing Task Team. 

 

Given the original powers to issue policy directives derived from the executive authority on policing vested in Mchunu, what is the extent of breach or unlawfulness in the letter Mchunu wrote to disband the PKKT? On the substantive issues of motive, which are profoundly subjective unless the live dockets prove otherwise, Mchunu might have the burden of demonstrating the lawfulness of his decisions. 

 

The accounts of General Mkhwanazi, which reveal how internal enablers within the police have compromised the country’s policing function, might contain facts that still need to be tested in court. Mchunu’s comprehensive response to the allegations will be crucial in this matter. At this stage of the enquiries, we have been subjected to General Mkhwanazi’s interpretation, which might not encompass the full context from which unlawfulness could be identified. 

 

Without diminishing the General’s courage to summon the media to a press conference, the actual test is how far his evidence results in convictions. His willingness to challenge the system extends beyond police and criminality; it has highlighted the question of how normative executive authority decisions are. From this debacle, a new community of practices should be developed for policing and public service as a vocation, underlining the situation’s urgency.