Madlanga Commission hearing record
Day 180 of the Madlanga Commission
Witness: Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni
Evidence led by Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC
The man whose messages were read out without him on Monday came back to answer them, and his answer was that it was a quarry deal, not a racket.
The day in brief
What you need to know
- Nothing on this page is a finding. Every answer Sibanyoni gave is untested, so is every allegation put to him, and he and everyone else named here are presumed innocent.
- The cross-examination that has had no date since 21 September finally ran. Madoda 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni was back in the box at the Bridgette Mabandla Justice College, with chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC putting the documentary case to him.
- This was the first time anyone has answered the extortion evidence led on Day 179. Sindane was absent for it, and Sibanyoni was not in the room either; on Tuesday the commission finally had a live witness for the messages.
- His central answer was that the money was an investment. Per The Citizen he told the commission he contributed R900,000 to Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli's operation: 'I contributed R900,000 to the business and to him.'
- Per The Citizen the structure he described was a local content arrangement. Ntuli held mining rights to a quarry near Middelburg but could not satisfy the rule that 30 percent of the R572 Moloto road upgrade go to local businesses, and Sibanyoni says he supplied the local standing: 'Mr Ntuli will be to supply materials from the quarry based on my involvement for him to get the local content.'
- That reframes the 60/40 split the evidence leaders put up on Day 179. Per The Citizen it started as 50/50 and moved to 60/40 in Ntuli's favour, in Sibanyoni's account because Ntuli ran the quarry: 'he gets 60% because you are directly involved running the quarry, give me 40%.' On the evidence leaders' reading the same split is the shape of a protection arrangement.
- He separated himself from his co-accused on the message. Per IOL and the African News Agency, asked by Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC whether Sindane had acted on his own, he answered 'Yes', and said: 'He [Sindane] was acting on his own.'
- Per IOL and the African News Agency he denied sending anything threatening at all: 'Ntuli and I had a good relationship, I never sent him any threatening message', and of the 48 hours message put to the commission on Day 179, 'That's why the [project] was not stopped. I don't know why he wrote this way, it was not me.'
- He was pressed on paying the legal bills of Calvin Gwabo Mahlangu, convicted in a taxi related killing. Per IOL Chaskalson put it as a pattern: 'What these chats cumulatively suggest is that Sibanyoni and Sindane were involved in paying legal expenses.'
- Per IOL his explanation was family, not crime: 'His family approached me ... his mother approached me to help.' Per Eyewitness News the WhatsApp traffic recovered from Sindane's phone shows payments for at least two men convicted in taxi related murders. Paying a person's legal costs is not an offence, and the commission's interest is in what the relationship is said to show.
- The Kwaggafontein 20 docket was the sharpest exchange of the day. Classified police material about a grouping linked to more than twenty murders had reached Sindane, and Sibanyoni said he did not know how and was not interested in it.
- The papers name a man he has previously identified in his own statement as his nephew, Mandla Ntsweni, rendered Mtsweni in some reporting, listed as an escaped suspect. Per Eyewitness News and The Citizen, Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC put it to him: 'I find it unbelievable that you were not interested in the information contained herein, as it relates at least to your nephew. It can't be; it's impossible.' He declined to take it further.
- Per Eyewitness News he objected to the whole line of questioning, telling the commission: 'If I were to be found guilty, I would blame Mr Chaskalson ... now he's trying me out.'
- Per SABC News he asked Chaskalson to stay off the Delmas criminal matter altogether, saying he wanted to leave the merits of the case to the courts, which will determine the outcome. It is a serious pending prosecution in which he is an accused, and the objection is one a witness is entitled to take.
- He is part-heard for the third time. Per Eyewitness News and IOL he returns on Wednesday 30 September 2026, with two sitting days left before public evidence closes on 2 October 2026.
Full coverage
The day, in depth
Why this day mattered before a word was said
For eight days the taxi strand of this commission had been evidence without an answer. Sibanyoni read a statement on Day 169 and a supplementary statement on Day 177, and both times the cross-examination that would test them was pushed out: on 22 September because his counsel Advocate Mpati Qofa was booked at the Khampepe Commission, and after that to no date at all. In the gap the commission lost its other taxi witness too. Oupa 'Bafana' Sindane did not appear on Day 178, lost his postponement application on 25 September, lost his urgent High Court bid on 28 September with punitive costs, and had the contents of his phone read into the record on Day 179 while he was somewhere else. That left the archive, and the commission, holding a detailed documentary case that nobody on the other side of it had been asked about. Day 180 closed that gap. The messages the evidence leaders read out on Monday were, for the most part, messages between Sindane and Sibanyoni, and on Tuesday one of the two men was in the chair.
The quarry, the local content rule and the R900,000
The core of the cross-examination was the alleged extortion of Dr Tengane Thomas Ntuli, which is also the charge Sibanyoni faces in Delmas. Per Business Day the case as put on Day 179 is that Ntuli paid R2.29 million between July 2021 and November 2025, mostly in R100,000 instalments to a transport company, after being told at a first meeting to pay R100,000 to open a line of communication because the men he was dealing with were, in the words attributed to them, the police looking after all the land in Kwaggafontein. Sibanyoni's answer on Tuesday was a different account of the same money. Per The Citizen he described a commercial partnership: Ntuli, a Middelburg mining businessman, held rights to a quarry that could supply aggregate stone to the R572 Moloto road upgrade through Ekukhanyeni, but could not satisfy the tender requirement that 30 percent of the work go to local businesses. Sibanyoni says he provided that local standing and put R900,000 of his own money in. 'I contributed R900,000 to the business and to him', he told the commission, and described the arrangement as one between adults rather than one extracted under pressure. Per The Citizen the split began at 50/50 and was revised to 60/40 in Ntuli's favour, on his account because Ntuli did the operational work: 'he gets 60% because you are directly involved running the quarry, give me 40%.' The same 60/40 figure appeared in the evidence leaders' account on Day 179, where it was presented as the shape of an extortion arrangement rather than of a joint venture. Both readings are now on the commission's record and neither has been tested.
Putting the message on the other man
The single most quoted line from Day 179 was a WhatsApp message attributed to Sindane after a payment was missed in July 2024: 'I demand a response, within 48 hours, detailing why the operation should not be stopped.' Per Business Day the same exchange was signed 'The Landlord, GrowthPoint'. On Tuesday Sibanyoni was asked whether he had sent it, instructed it or known about it, and per IOL and the African News Agency his answer was none of the three. 'Ntuli and I had a good relationship, I never sent him any threatening message', he said, and of the message itself: 'That's why the [project] was not stopped. I don't know why he wrote this way, it was not me.' Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC put the consequence of that answer to him directly, asking whether Sindane had therefore acted on his own, and per IOL and the African News Agency he agreed: 'He [Sindane] was acting on his own.' That is a significant thing for one co-accused to say about another in a public inquiry while both face the same charges arising from the same conduct. Sindane has still given no evidence to this commission and has not answered it. Both men deny the charges and both are presumed innocent.
The legal fees of a convicted man, and the answer that it was his mother
The second strand Chaskalson pressed was money moving towards men already convicted of taxi related killings. Per Eyewitness News the WhatsApp traffic off Sindane's phone shows payments connected to at least two such men. The one put to Sibanyoni by name was Calvin Gwabo Mahlangu. Per IOL Chaskalson framed it as a cumulative picture rather than a single payment: 'What these chats cumulatively suggest is that Sibanyoni and Sindane were involved in paying legal expenses.' Sibanyoni did not dispute that he had helped, and per IOL explained it as a family obligation: 'His family approached me ... his mother approached me to help.' He said the help was directed at Mahlangu's mother rather than at Mahlangu, denied choosing the attorney or funding an appeal, and attributed the arrangements to Sindane. Funding another person's defence is lawful, and the commission's interest is in what the relationship is said to demonstrate about the network it is investigating rather than in the payment standing alone. This archive is holding back a further set of particulars about the attorney and the amount, which so far rest on one outlet. Nothing here has been tested, Mahlangu's conviction is a matter of court record and is not in issue before this commission, and Sibanyoni is presumed innocent of everything alleged against him.
A confidential docket, a nephew, and a commissioner who did not believe him
The exchange that will outlast the day came from the panel rather than from the evidence leaders. The commission has heard that Sindane held classified police material, including a docket concerning an alleged grouping called the Kwaggafontein 20, said to be linked to more than twenty murders around KwaMhlanga and Siyabuswa. Per Eyewitness News Sibanyoni said he did not know how Sindane obtained it and had not been interested in what it contained. The difficulty is who is named in it. The papers list an escaped suspect, Mandla Ntsweni, whom Sibanyoni himself identified in his own statement as his nephew, and he told the commission he had recently given police information about Ntsweni's whereabouts. Per Eyewitness News and The Citizen, Commissioner Advocate Sesi Baloyi SC suggested the material would have been sent to him precisely because the sender expected him to care, and then said so in terms: 'I find it unbelievable that you were not interested in the information contained herein, as it relates at least to your nephew. It can't be; it's impossible.' He did not answer further. A commissioner saying she does not believe a witness is not a finding; it is the panel testing credibility out loud, which is what cross-examination in a public inquiry is for. The wider question underneath it, how a confidential SAPS docket reached a private citizen at all, is the same question the commission has been asking about every other leaked police document it has seen.
The objection: a commission is not a criminal court
Sibanyoni pushed back on the exercise itself more than once. Per Eyewitness News he told the commission that the cross-examination was building a case against him rather than assisting an inquiry: 'If I were to be found guilty, I would blame Mr Chaskalson ... now he's trying me out.' Per SABC News he asked Chaskalson not to question him on the Delmas matter at all, saying he wanted to leave the merits of the case to the courts, which will determine the outcome, and describing it as a serious pending criminal case in which detailed answers here could prejudice him there. It is the same objection he took on Day 177, where he called the inclusion of a pending criminal docket as an exhibit constitutionally problematic and reminded the panel that the commission is not a criminal court. The tension is real and it is not new to this commission. The facts of the Delmas prosecution and the facts the commission needs about the taxi industry are the same facts, and the witness is an accused in the first and a subpoenaed witness in the second. The chairperson has not ruled on the objection.
The police contacts strand, now carried by more than one outlet
One part of Monday's evidence this archive held back for want of a second source can now be recorded, because it has one. Per Sowetan the messages recovered from Sindane's phone include two officers saved by station: a contact recorded as 'Lepara SAPS Highway', who offered escorts, and a contact recorded as 'Mashigo SAPS Midrand', where the exchanges suggest a standing arrangement for escorts. Per Sowetan the evidence leader's characterisation was that 'if one looks at the chats, it seems essentially that Lepara was at the disposal of Mr Sindane', and in one exchange the contact told Sindane they were on the streets and to make contact if help was needed. The Citizen carried the same strand on the same day, adding a message reading 'My brother, we're on duty, in case you need us'. Per the Daily Maverick the leaked material went beyond escorts: an internal Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department affidavit about the alleged unauthorised use of police blue lights by Cat Security, signed on 25 September 2025, reached Sindane within two days through an intermediary, and Chaskalson asked how an internal law enforcement affidavit was reaching him that fast. Named officers have answered none of this, it was not put to Sibanyoni in these terms on Tuesday, and everyone involved is presumed innocent.
Where it was left, and what is left of the calendar
Sibanyoni is part-heard for the third time, and per Eyewitness News and IOL he returns on Wednesday 30 September 2026. That matters because of what is behind it: public evidence in the chamber is still scheduled to close on 2 October 2026, and the commission still has Major-General Feroz Khan's evidence outstanding, possibly in part and possibly in camera, on 6 October. Khan was referred for criminal charges on Monday for not appearing at all. Sindane has been heard about but not from. Sibanyoni is the only one of the three who has actually sat in the chair, and after Tuesday he is the only one whose account has been tested in public at all. The report to the President is due on 25 January 2027 following the Presidency's extension of 19 September 2026.
In their words
Key moments from the record
“I contributed R900,000 to the business and to him.”
“he gets 60% because you are directly involved running the quarry, give me 40%”
“Mr Ntuli will be to supply materials from the quarry based on my involvement for him to get the local content.”
“Ntuli and I had a good relationship, I never sent him any threatening message.”
“He [Sindane] was acting on his own.”
“What these chats cumulatively suggest is that Sibanyoni and Sindane were involved in paying legal expenses.”
“His family approached me ... his mother approached me to help.”
“I find it unbelievable that you were not interested in the information contained herein, as it relates at least to your nephew. It can't be; it's impossible.”
“If I were to be found guilty, I would blame Mr Chaskalson ... now he's trying me out.”
“If one looks at the chats, it seems essentially that Lepara was at the disposal of Mr Sindane.”
Our analysis
The bottom line
The value of this day is not that anything was proved. It is that, for the first time in this strand, the commission has two competing accounts of the same money on its own record, given by people with something to lose. Until Tuesday the Moloto road evidence was an affidavit, a bank trail and a set of messages, all of it read out by counsel to an empty chair. Now there is an answer: not a denial that money moved, but a claim about what the money was. That is the difference between an allegation and a contest, and a contest is something a report can actually weigh.
The answer is also testable, which is what makes it more interesting than a flat denial. A local content arrangement leaves paperwork. A 30 percent set aside on a road contract, a quarry with mining rights, a R900,000 contribution and a 60/40 profit share should all exist somewhere in company records, bank statements and the tender file, and the question of whether payments of R100,000 a month running for more than four years look like a profit share or look like a levy is a question documents can answer better than witnesses can. The commission has two sitting days left in public. Whether it gets to that paper, or leaves the two accounts standing side by side, is now the live question on this strand.
The most consequential sentence of the day was the shortest one. Telling a commissioner that a co-accused was acting on his own is a defence, and it is a defence aimed at a man who is not in the room, has not testified, and lost his bid last week to keep these very messages out. It may well be true. But it is worth noticing what the sequence has produced: the commission ruled that Sindane's evidence could be led in whatever format, led it in his absence, and the following day the one person present used the space to put the worst of it on him. Whatever the merits, the process has handed one co-accused a first word that the other has not had.
Baloyi's intervention was the part of the day that a report writer will remember, because it was not about the tender or the messages at all. It was about whether the witness's posture is credible. A man who says he took no interest in a leaked police file that names his own nephew as an escaped suspect is asking the panel to accept a degree of incuriosity that the panel, out loud, would not accept. That is not a finding and it does not make him guilty of anything. It does tell you where the commission's doubts are pointed with four days left on the clock, and it tells you that the panel intends to use them.
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.
Follow the threads
Who Madoda Johannes 'Joe Ferrari' Sibanyoni connects to
Bafana 'King of the Sky' Sindane
Sindane is one of the three men charged with Sibanyoni over an alleged R2.2 million in protection fees demanded from a mining businessman between 2022 and 2025, and Advocate Mpati Qofa acts for both of them. It was Qofa's unavailability that pushed Sibanyoni's cross-examination past 22 September 2026, and Sindane was called to the commission for 23 September. On Day 180, 29 September 2026, that alliance came apart in public: per IOL and the African News Agency, Sibanyoni told Commissioner Advocate Sandile Khumalo SC that Sindane sent the alleged threatening message on his own, 'he [Sindane] was acting on his own'. Sindane has given no evidence to this commission and has not answered it. Both men deny the charges and are presumed innocent.
View profile →The man he accuses, who is deadJotham 'King Mswazi' Msibi
On Day 169 Sibanyoni named Msibi as the source of the threat against him, said Msibi told him 'we die in the business', said Msibi surrounded himself with izinkabi after being confronted over the 2006 shooting, and said Msibi's death in January 2024 brought relief. He succeeded Msibi as president of the taxi body. Msibi died in January 2024 and cannot answer any of it; untested.
View profile →Accused of the attempt on his lifeVusimuzi 'Cat' Matlala
Matlala and four co-accused have pleaded not guilty to 25 charges, including eleven counts of attempted murder, arising from the 10 August 2022 shooting of Sibanyoni at the Centurion Golf and Country Club estate. The trial began on 21 July 2026 with Sibanyoni as the state's first witness. Matlala denies the charges and is presumed innocent.
View profile →Named in his account of why he feared for his lifeKatiso 'KT' Molefe
On Day 169 Sibanyoni said the association between the late Jotham Msibi and both Molefe and Vusimuzi Matlala convinced him a renewed threat against him was forming. Molefe has never given evidence to this commission, is charged in separate matters and is presumed innocent. Untested.
View profile →Named in the same alleged circleSteve Motsumi
Both men are named on this commission's record in connection with the network around the late Jotham Msibi - Motsumi on the Day 161 messages from Msibi's phone, Sibanyoni in Sergeant Fannie Nkosi's 'group of five'. Neither allegation has been tested and both men are presumed innocent.
View profile →In the room & on the record
Counsel, the panel and sources
Evidence led by
On the panel
Sources
- SABC News - LIVE: Madlanga Commission of Inquiry Day 180 (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Joe Sibanyoni takes issue with questions about alleged extortion involvement (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni grilled over payment of legal fees for convicted hitman (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- EWN - Mpumalanga taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni expected to return to Madlanga Commission (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni admits he fronted for mining businessman to profit from tender (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - Madlanga Commission: taxi boss Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni blames associate for R2m Moloto road extortion (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- African News Agency - Madlanga Commission: taxi boss Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni blames associate for R2m Moloto road extortion (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - WATCH: Sibanyoni reveals R900k business payment to man accusing him of extortion (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- IOL - 'His mother asked me': taxi boss Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni explains why he paid legal fees to convicted hitman (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- SABC News - Sibanyoni urges Chaskalson not to question him on Delmas court matter (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- Sowetan - WATCH LIVE: Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni returns to the Madlanga commission (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- Business Day - WATCH LIVE: Joe 'Ferrari' Sibanyoni returns at the Madlanga commission (29 Sep 2026) ↗
- Business Day - Taxi boss Joe Sibanyoni and Oupa Sindane part of R2m 'extortion scheme', probe told (28 Sep 2026) ↗
- Sowetan - Chats show Sindane had cops at fingertips (28 Sep 2026) ↗
- The Citizen - Taxi boss Oupa 'King of the Sky' Sindane in spotlight as Madlanga commission probes police escorts and criminal links (28 Sep 2026) ↗
- Daily Maverick - Taxi boss Oupa Sindane linked to extortion racket and leaked police intelligence (28 Sep 2026) ↗
- Inside Politics - Sibanyoni admits to funding taxi killers' legal bill, but claims due to family respect (29 Sep 2026) ↗