Madlanga Commission hearing record

Day 122 of the Madlanga Commission

19 June 2026

Evidence led by Advocate Mahlape Sello SC

Suspended KZN Hawks provincial head Lesetja Senona returns for a second round with Advocate Dali Mpofu SC firing back at the commission over 'unfair' treatment, while still denying any hand in the R200m Port Shepstone cocaine theft.

Official transcript (PDF) ↗All hearing days

Major General Lesetja Senona - Day 122 of the Madlanga Commission

The day in brief

What you need to know

Major General Lesetja Senona was recalled a second time to face fresh questions on the theft of roughly 541kg of cocaine, valued at about R200m, from the Hawks office in Port Shepstone after it was seized near Isipingo in June 2021.
His new counsel, Advocate Dali Mpofu SC, opened by accusing the commission of a 'serial refusal' to hand over the transcripts and documents Senona needs to answer the allegations against him.
Mpofu questioned the cost and fairness of recalling Senona over ground he says was already covered during his three-day appearance in January 2026.
Under questioning by evidence leader Advocate Mahlape Sello SC, Senona said no security threats at the Port Shepstone office had ever been formally reported to him.
Senona told the commission he was removed from his office 'like a dog' when he was suspended, spoke of being hospitalised for about two weeks, and raised fears for his own and his family's safety.
He disputed earlier testimony that he had subjected a junior officer to a polygraph over a stolen coffee machine, and confirmed that he himself was never polygraphed after the cocaine vanished.
All allegations are untested and Senona denies wrongdoing; he remains presumed innocent.

Full coverage

The day, in depth

A contested recall

Before Senona said a word on the merits, Mpofu spent the opening framing the recall itself as procedurally unfair. He told the commission it had repeatedly failed to furnish his client with requested material that reportedly implicates him, characterising the pattern as a 'serial refusal' and saying letters seeking the data drew no reply or unreasonable answers. He also pressed the cost and burden of hauling Senona back over territory covered in his three-day January appearance. These are arguments of counsel, not evidence.

The 2021 bust that became a heist

The consignment at the centre of the inquiry, about 541kg of cocaine worth roughly R200m, was intercepted near Isipingo in KwaZulu-Natal in June 2021. Months later it disappeared from the poorly secured Hawks building in Port Shepstone in what investigators now treat as an inside job. Senona again distanced himself from the theft and from any collusion with organised-crime syndicates.

Security, suspension and a coffee machine

Senona testified that no security threats at the Port Shepstone office were ever reported to him, and described his own removal from office in stark terms, saying he was treated 'like a dog' and was hospitalised for around two weeks. He rejected the account that he had maliciously forced a junior colleague to take a lie-detector test over a stolen coffee machine, and confirmed that he was never himself polygraphed after the drugs went missing.

Fair process versus a searching test

The friction on the day was as much about method as about cocaine. Mpofu's complaint put the commission's document-sharing and its decision to recall a suspended senior officer under a spotlight, even as Sello pressed Senona on custody, security and the coffee-machine episode. The exchange set the tone for a combative second stint in the chair.

In their words

Key moments from the record

“No security threats were reported to me.”

Senona, on the office security. Senona's answer to evidence leader Mahlape Sello SC; it is his untested version and denies the premise that threats went unaddressed.

“serial refusal”

Adv Dali Mpofu SC, for Senona. Mpofu's characterisation of the commission's handling of requested documents; this is a procedural objection by counsel, not evidence.

Our analysis

The bottom line

A second recall of the same witness is unusual enough to invite exactly the objection Mpofu raised, and his fair-process complaint is not frivolous: a person facing career-ending and potentially criminal implications is entitled to the documents that underpin the case against him. But an objection about access to papers is a different thing from an answer on the merits, and the commission's task is precisely to test Senona's account of how a R200m consignment left a police strong-room on his watch.

Senona's most vivid testimony, being removed 'like a dog' and hospitalised, humanises a suspended officer who plainly feels wronged, yet none of it resolves the central custody question. The coffee-machine polygraph dispute and his own admission that he was never polygraphed after the theft cut in opposite directions and will matter only once weighed against the documentary record.

Nothing said on Day 122 amounts to a finding against anyone. The value of the session is that it sharpened the two things the commission must still reconcile: who controlled access to the Port Shepstone strong-room, and whether the process of examining Senona has been fair enough for his answers to carry weight.

Analysis is the archive’s own comment on the public proceedings, grounded in the record above. It weighs the evidence and the process; questions of individual guilt are for the courts and the commission to decide. Everyone named is presumed innocent.

On the record

Who testified this day

Testified · resigned from Hawks

Major General Lesetja Senona

Provincial Head, KZN Hawks (DPCI)

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Follow the threads

Who Major General Lesetja Senona connects to

The national head he says he told, who says otherwise

Lieutenant General Seswantsho Godfrey Lebeya

Senona ran the KwaZulu-Natal Hawks under Lebeya and directed that the seized cocaine be stored at Port Shepstone. His evidence is that he told Lebeya the office had safely stored a large quantity before; on Day 171 Lebeya said he was never told where the drugs were until after they were gone. Evidence leader Advocate Lee Segeels-Ncube put it that one of them must be lying or both mistaken. No finding has been made and both are presumed innocent.

View profile →The friendship Day 167 was spent on

Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala

Named among the affidavit omissions Matlala was recalled on Day 165 to explain, and the sole subject of Day 167 (26 August 2026). Matlala described Senona as an older brother, said the general lent him R20,000 after the 6 December 2024 raid on his home, confirmed WhatsApp advice of 13 May 2025 about challenging the Medicare24 cancellation, and refused to describe a flat bought with Senona and his son Thato. Untested; both presumed innocent.

View profile →Placed at his farm in Day 167 evidence

Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi

Per Business Day, evidence on 26 August 2026 put Senona at the farm of the late taxi boss where Matlala's company rendered protection services. Msibi is dead; Senona is presumed innocent and no finding has been made.

View profile →Accompanied Matlala to a meeting with him

Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi

Per The Citizen and Business Day, Senona was present at the Umhlanga meeting of 15 April 2025 between Matlala and the KZN provincial commissioner. Matlala says Senona took no part in the tender discussion. Untested.

View profile →Consulted by

Brigadier Campbell Nyuswa

Nyuswa testified Senona approved storing the cocaine at Port Shepstone and then took possession of both safe keys; Senona says Nyuswa initiated the polygraph applications.

View profile →Top of the chain

Colonel Gavin Jacob

Jacob's unit moved the drugs to the site Senona directed.

View profile →Signed his transfer

Warrant Officer Karl Sander

Senona signed Sander's Feb 2024 transfer letter and ordered his polygraphs; on 19 June he said Sander 'misled the commission'.

View profile →Accused of misleading the inquiry

Lieutenant Colonel Jakobus Prinsloo (retired)

Senona told the commission on 19 June that retired Lt-Col Prinsloo misled it over the Port Shepstone storage handling.

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Zoom out

Related case files

Case file · Drug seizures

Port Shepstone cocaine theft

How an estimated R200 million in cocaine, seized at South Africa's busiest port, disappeared from a police office that intelligence reports had flagged as unsafe years earlier - and the chain of officers the commission is now questioning.

Read the case file →

In the room & on the record

Counsel, the panel and sources

Evidence led by

Advocate Mahlape Sello SC

On the panel

Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)

Sources

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