Madlanga CommissionLatest day

Hearing record

Day 161

Evidence led by Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC

No witness, and the most productive day the commission has had in a fortnight. Evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson SC spent it inside the phone of a dead taxi boss - and found a plan to buy a police-badged phone interceptor and sell it to eSwatini.

Official transcript (PDF) ↗All hearing days
Still from Day 161 of the Madlanga Commission

The day in brief

What you need to know

  • The official record for Day 161 reads 'Witness : None' - Vusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala's testimony had been postponed to 24 August - so the commission led documentary evidence instead, through chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC.
  • The source was the phone of the late taxi boss Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi, described in evidence as a former leader of the alleged 'Big Five' cartel: WhatsApp messages, photographs and video.
  • The centrepiece was an alleged plan to buy a 'grabber' - an IMSI catcher that intercepts cellphone traffic - from a Czech supplier by presenting the buyer as the South African Police Service, then resell the technology in eSwatini.
  • On the messages, the alleged participants were Msibi, suspended SAPS sergeant Fannie Nkosi, murder-accused businessman Katiso 'KT' Molefe and security businessman Steve Motsumi. Nkosi is alleged to have put SAPS stamps on the procurement paperwork.
  • A separate procurement thread involving Paris and Hamburg concerned active monitoring systems valued at about R1.16 million.
  • On 26 April 2023 Msibi sent businessman Ze Nxumalo the details of an Ekurhuleni integrated rapid public transport network contract months before Camp Rock, a company linked to Msibi's interests, won it.
  • On 23 September 2023 Motsumi sent Msibi the contact details of then Ekurhuleni city manager Dr Imogen Mashazi; Msibi called her two days later. The commissioners stressed they do not know what was said and that no inference should be drawn.
  • A message about roughly EUR46,256 recorded that 'she' had received about R1 million. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo: 'we have not established that the she is her.' The commission will approach the South African Reserve Bank for the records.
  • A previously unidentified link surfaced: a joint venture between Suleiman Carrim's Ziggy Investments and Transnational Coaches, tied to subsidised bus contracts, with R700,000 to Santaco and R1 million into Tucofin, where Msibi was a director.
  • The day closed on photographs and video of cannabis production at Jack Frost Pharmaceuticals in Germiston that appeared to predate the licence issued on 19 September 2022.

Full coverage

The day, in depth

A day with no witness is not a day with no evidence

The commission's own record for 18 August lists no witness. Matlala, who took the stand on 17 August and claimed the privilege against self-incrimination on almost everything of consequence, had been stood down to 24 August so his team could file a supplementary affidavit. Rather than lose the day, chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC used it to put documentary evidence on the record - material extracted from devices belonging to Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi, the Mpumalanga-born taxi boss and owner of the security company Themy Styles, who is dead and whose phone has become one of the richest single sources in this inquiry. Msibi cannot answer any of it. Everyone else named in the messages has not yet been asked to.

The grabber: a police badge on a private purchase

The most serious strand concerned an IMSI catcher, known in the trade as a 'grabber' - equipment that mimics a cellphone tower and intercepts the traffic passing through it. On the chats Chaskalson led, dating from January 2023, Msibi, suspended SAPS sergeant Fannie Nkosi, Katiso 'KT' Molefe and Steve Motsumi allegedly set out to acquire one from a supplier in the Czech Republic, on the representation that the purchaser was the South African Police Service, and then to sell it on in eSwatini. 'The Czech Republic has been told that this is a demonstration for the South African Police Service,' Chaskalson told the commission. Nkosi is alleged to have applied SAPS stamps to the documents that made the representation work. Msibi's own message about the transaction was cautious rather than eager: 'It's on the table but they have to display. We don't want to become fools.' A related procurement thread involving suppliers in Paris and Hamburg concerned active monitoring systems valued at about R1.16 million.

Why a grabber is a commission matter and not just a crime

Interception equipment is not ordinary contraband. In South African law the ability to intercept communications is tightly held and judicially controlled, and it is the exact capability that separates a criminal network from a criminal network that can see the state coming. This inquiry exists because of an allegation that syndicates have infiltrated policing; a plan to obtain surveillance capability by wearing the police's own identity is that allegation in its most literal form. The evidence also joins two strands the commission had been running separately: the Big Five cartel evidence of September 2025, in which Molefe was named, and the Tshwane procurement evidence of April 2026, in which Sergeant Nkosi's WhatsApp traffic with the city's suspended chief financial officer was led at length.

Ekurhuleni: a contract identified before it was awarded

The second strand moved to municipal procurement. Chaskalson showed that on 26 April 2023 Msibi sent businessman Zesimdumise 'Ze' Nxumalo the details of a contract for the project management unit and technical services on Ekurhuleni's integrated rapid public transport network, funded by the national Department of Transport. Camp Rock, a company linked to Msibi's interests, subsequently won it. In between, Msibi pressed: 'Have you spoken to Jose, please, and the Ekurhuleni issue,' and Nxumalo replied, 'Please give me until Tuesday, all will be well.' In October 2023 Nxumalo confirmed the submission had reached the bid evaluation committee. Chaskalson noted that this sat uneasily with an account that the tender had been shared casually, given that Msibi had identified the specific contract months earlier.

The call to the city manager, and the caution around it

On 23 September 2023 Motsumi sent Msibi the contact details of Dr Imogen Mashazi, then Ekurhuleni's city manager. Msibi called her two days later. The commission was careful with this: the commissioners said they do not know the content of that conversation and cautioned expressly against assuming anything from the fact of the call. The same caution was applied to a message about roughly EUR46,256, in which Nxumalo told Msibi that someone identified only as 'she' had received about R1 million. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo put it on the record himself: 'we have not established that the she is her.' The commission said it would approach the South African Reserve Bank for the underlying banking records rather than argue from the message. Mashazi already faces separate criminal charges in the Ekurhuleni matter, which are untested and in which she is presumed innocent; nothing led on Day 161 is a finding against her.

A Carrim link the investigators had not found

The third strand was genuinely new. The evidence pointed to a joint venture between Ziggy Investments, a company of North West businessman Suleiman Carrim, and Transnational Coaches, connected to subsidised bus transport contracts in Gauteng and the North West, with Msibi's operations attached to it. The figures put up were R700,000 paid to the South African National Taxi Council, R300,000 outstanding from North West entities, and R1 million paid into Tucofin, a company of which Msibi was a director. Chaskalson told the commission the connection had not previously been identified by investigators. Carrim is the same businessman the commission resolved to charge on 14 August 2026 for failing to appear, and whose funding of a Matlala tender Matlala himself put at R15 million on Day 160 against Carrim's own March figure of R10 million.

Jack Frost: cannabis before the licence

The day ended on photographs, video and chats about a cannabis growing operation run through Jack Frost Pharmaceuticals in Germiston. The material suggested cultivation was already under way before the licence was issued on 19 September 2022. 'What we are looking at is production that took place before a licence was issued, or certainly before this licence was issued,' Chaskalson said, adding that investigators were still checking whether some other permit had covered the period. One of the videos sent to Msibi drew laughter in the chamber. The evidence suggested Msibi had been asked to help deter investigations into the company; his precise role was not established. The chats also touched on cigarette thefts and on an offer of 'red water', a reagent used in illegal gold processing.

In their words

Key moments from the record

“The Czech Republic has been told that this is a demonstration for the South African Police Service.”
The police badge on a private deal. Evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC, on the representation allegedly made to the Czech supplier of the interception equipment (Day 161, 18 August 2026). Untested; those named are presumed innocent.
“It's on the table but they have to display. We don't want to become fools.”
Msibi on the 'Swazi deal'. A January 2023 WhatsApp message attributed to the late taxi boss Jotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi, led in evidence on Day 161. Msibi is dead and cannot answer it.
“We have not established that the she is her.”
The commission refuses the easy inference. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo, on a message recording that 'she' had received about R1 million, and on the temptation to read it as a reference to the then Ekurhuleni city manager.
“Have you spoken to Jose, please, and the Ekurhuleni issue.”
The Ekurhuleni nudge. A message attributed to Msibi and sent to businessman Ze Nxumalo, between Msibi identifying the transport contract in April 2023 and its submission to the bid evaluation committee that October.
“What we are looking at is production that took place before a licence was issued, or certainly before this licence was issued.”
Production before the paperwork. Chaskalson on photographs and video of the Jack Frost Pharmaceuticals cannabis operation in Germiston, against a licence issued on 19 September 2022. Investigators were still checking for an earlier permit.

Our analysis

The bottom line

This was the most useful day the commission has had since the KwaZulu-Natal stream opened, and it had no witness in it. That is worth noticing. A live witness can claim privilege, forget, be too ill to attend, or simply decline - three of which have happened in the last fortnight. A phone does none of those things. Msibi's device has now produced more testable material in a single sitting than several weeks of contested oral evidence, and the commission's remaining calendar, with an evidence deadline of 2 October 2026, may be better spent this way than on witnesses who will not answer.

The grabber evidence is the sharpest thing the commission has led about capability rather than money. Most of the record so far concerns cash moving in the wrong direction. This concerns a network allegedly trying to acquire the ability to listen - and doing it by borrowing the identity of the police service itself. If the messages are what they appear to be, the interesting question is not whether an offence was committed abroad but what a private party would want a state-grade interception device for at home, and who would have operated it.

The care the commissioners took around Imogen Mashazi is the correct posture and should be read as such by anyone tempted to draw the line for them. A contact card, a call two days later and a message referring to 'she' do not establish who received anything. Commissioner Khumalo said so on the record, and the commission chose to go to the Reserve Bank rather than to an inference. That is the difference between an inquiry and a rumour, and it is the standard the rest of this evidence should be held to.

The Carrim joint venture is the day's quiet find. It arrived not from a witness but from a reconciliation of records the investigators had not previously connected, and it lands on a man the commission has just resolved to charge for refusing to appear. Carrim gave evidence in March, will not be recalled, and the commission has said it will make its findings on that March evidence alone. Material like this, surfacing after the door closed, is a reminder of what the commission gave up when it stopped trying to get him back in the chair.

Finally, the Jack Frost material shows the range of what was on this phone: interception equipment, a metro transport tender, a bus subsidy joint venture, a cannabis farm, cigarettes and a gold-processing reagent. Read together, they describe a broker rather than a specialist - someone whose value lay in connecting people across unrelated markets. That is a shape the commission has now seen several times, and it is the shape of the thing the inquiry was set up to describe.

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.

In the room & on the record

Counsel, the panel and sources

Evidence led by

  • Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC

On the panel

  • Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)
  • Commissioner Sandile Khumalo

Sources

← Earlier in timeDay 16017 August 2026More recent →Day 16219 August 2026