Madlanga CommissionLatest day

Hearing record

Day 86

Tshwane Metro Police Chief Yolande Faro continued as the headline witness as the commission kept its focus on corruption and political interference in policing, walking the hearing through how ad hoc security procurement in the City of Tshwane allegedly ballooned into what she described as the siphoning of public money, the tenders she says she moved to halt, and the smear campaign she believes followed her interventions. All those she named are presumed innocent and the allegations remain untested before the commission.

Official transcript (PDF) ↗All hearing days
Still from Day 86 of the Madlanga Commission

The day in brief

What you need to know

  • Faro's evidence framed the Tshwane metro police's ad hoc security spending less as loose controls than as deliberate leakage, telling the commission that what she found looked like clear systems of siphoning money rather than mere irregularity.
  • According to the reporting, as much as R2.9 billion may have been channelled through physical-security arrangements traced to a 2016/17 tender, with ad hoc costs running at roughly R730 million a year between March 2022 and January 2026.
  • Faro said she halted more than 20 external ad hoc procurement requests in March 2025 and moved against an irregular asset-protection tender valued at about R800 million, but conceded that payments continued in places despite her directives.
  • Named in the alleged procurement manipulation are Tshwane's suspended chief financial officer Gareth Mnisi, deputy TMPD commissioner Umashi Dhlamini and officials linked to deployments for a company called Gubis 85 Solutions; every person named is presumed innocent and none has been convicted of any offence.
  • Faro told the commission that after she intervened a smear campaign was launched against her, alleging she had misrepresented her qualifications and accepted a R450,000 voucher, and she said a forensic investigation cleared her of those claims.
  • She also acknowledged governance weaknesses inside the department, including that not all of her deputies hold State Security Agency clearance for their senior posts.
  • The testimony builds on deputy commissioner Rivo Spies' March evidence on the same asset-protection procurement and places Tshwane alongside Ekurhuleni at the centre of the commission's wider inquiry into metro-police tenders, blue lights and political interference.

Full coverage

The day, in depth

'Siphoning', not just irregularity

The Mail & Guardian reported that Faro told the commission the Tshwane metro police's ad hoc security spending resembled organised leakage rather than administrative sloppiness. She described halting an irregular three-year asset-protection tender worth about R800 million that had been approved in 2022, and stopping more than 20 external ad hoc requests in March 2025 after finding no reports of break-ins or security concerns to justify them. She said she acted after discovering internal correspondence referencing additional security sites. The account remains her untested evidence before the commission.

R2.9 billion and a smear campaign

Daily Maverick reported that testimony pointed to as much as R2.9 billion potentially flowing through physical-security arrangements tied to a 2016/17 tender, with ad hoc services alone costing around R730 million a year to January 2026. Suspended CFO Gareth Mnisi and deputy commissioner Umashi Dhlamini were named in relation to questionable purchase orders and deployments, and a company owned by Calvin Mahlangu was reported to have received tens of millions for ad hoc work. Faro said that once she tried to stop the spending a campaign was mounted against her, alleging fake qualifications and a R450,000 voucher, and that a forensic probe cleared her. Those she named are entitled to answer the claims.

Two metros in the frame

IOL and eNCA situated the Tshwane evidence within the commission's broader look at metro policing, which has also heard damning claims about the Ekurhuleni metro police, blue lights on private vehicles and security tenders. The Tshwane strand follows deputy commissioner Rivo Spies' 24 March testimony, which first exposed alleged manipulation of the asset-protection procurement. The commission has treated the two metros as parallel case studies in how procurement and political interference can intersect. No findings have been made and the evidence is still being led.

A political welcome

IOL reported that the ANC's Greater Tshwane region welcomed the TMPD testimony before the commission, framing it as vindication of calls to clean up procurement in the city. The reaction underlines how the metro-police evidence has become entangled with local political contestation over control of Tshwane. Such statements are political commentary, not evidence, and carry no weight in the commission's fact-finding.

In their words

Key moments from the record

“It is not, it would seem, systems of irregularities but clear systems of siphoning of money”
'Clear systems of siphoning'. Characterising the pattern she said she uncovered in the Tshwane metro police's ad hoc security procurement, in evidence to the commission reported by the Mail & Guardian.
“not all my deputies have SSA clearance”
A vetting gap conceded. Acknowledging a governance shortfall among senior TMPD officers, in testimony reported by Daily Maverick.

Our analysis

The bottom line

The through-line of Faro's evidence is a claim that Tshwane's ad hoc security budget was drained on purpose rather than by accident. The figures she and earlier witnesses put before the commission are striking, but they are allegations still to be tested, and the officials she named have not answered them in this record. The value, if it holds, will sit in the process detail - who could authorise deployments, why payments allegedly continued after a halt order, and whether the city's central supply-chain controls failed - rather than in any single dramatic number.

It is worth holding two things at once. A witness who reports being the target of a smear campaign is also an interested party in the story she is telling, and a forensic clearance she cites is her account of a document the commission can examine for itself. Her conceded governance gaps, such as deputies without security clearance, cut in more than one direction: they support her picture of a compromised department, but they also raise questions about oversight on her own watch.

For readers, the fair reading of Day 86 is provisional. The commission is assembling a paper trail on metro-police procurement across Tshwane and Ekurhuleni, and Faro's testimony is one contested strand of it. Guilt is for a court, not a commission, and nothing here has been proven against anyone named.

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

On the panel

  • Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga (chairperson)

Sources

← Earlier in timeDay 8507 April 2026More recent →Day 8709 April 2026