{"id":262621,"date":"2025-07-13T22:02:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-13T22:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/262621\/"},"modified":"2025-07-13T22:02:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T22:02:09","slug":"cyril-ramaphosa-suspends-sa-police-minister-senzo-mchunu-over-allegations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/262621\/","title":{"rendered":"Cyril Ramaphosa suspends SA police minister Senzo Mchunu over allegations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In his speech, the president said that the allegations against Mchunu, which include interference in investigations into political killings and corruption within law enforcement agencies, &#8220;call for an urgent and comprehensive investigation&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the judicial commission, led by the country&#8217;s deputy chief justice, would examine all the claims. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The commission will also investigate current and former police officials, as well as members of the national executive, Ramaphosa said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ramaphosa has been under growing public pressure to act swiftly over the high-profile case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Mchunu, 67, is an influential figure in Ramaphosa&#8217;s African National Congress (ANC) party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Political analysts have suggested he could run for a leadership position at the ANC&#8217;s next elective conference in 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement, Mchunu said: &#8220;I welcome and respect the president&#8217;s decision and pledge my commitment to the process. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Honour and integrity are the virtues I personally subscribe to and which we all need to make efforts to uphold.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cx205ykppdjo\" class=\"ssrcss-f6h2dj-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The allegations were first made public by KwaZulu-Natal provincial police boss Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi<\/a> last Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He claimed Mchunu was receiving financial support from an allegedly corrupt businessman to fund his &#8220;political endeavours&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Gen Mkhwanazi also detailed a sequence of events he claimed led to the &#8220;orchestrated&#8221; disbandment of a task force that was set up in 2018 to investigate the killing of politicians, mainly in KwaZulu-Natal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said the team&#8217;s investigations had uncovered links to high-profile individuals &#8211; including politicians, police officials, and businesspeople tied to a drug cartel syndicate &#8211; and this is why the team was disbanded.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When he dissolved the unit earlier this year, Mchunu said it was not adding value in the province, despite many cases remaining unsolved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">According to Gen Mkhwanazi, a total of 121 case files were allegedly removed from the unit on the minister&#8217;s instruction and without the authorisation of his boss, the national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;These case dockets have, since March, been sitting at the head office ever since without any investigation work done on them. Five of these dockets already had instructions to [effect] arrests,&#8221; Gen Mkhwanazi said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He also alleged Mchunu had ties to a controversial businessman who was &#8220;financially supporting&#8221; the minister&#8217;s political career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Vusimuzi Matlala had a lucrative contract with the police before it was abruptly cancelled when he was arrested for attempted murder in May. Gen Mkhwanazi shared copies of text messages and a payment allegedly made by Mr Matlala to prove this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his speech, the president said that the allegations against Mchunu, which include interference in investigations into political&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-262621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114848185964451308","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}