Cat Matlala: 3 Days at the Madlanga Commission
Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala appeared before the Madlanga Commission on 24, 25 and 26 August 2026, and spent most of those 3 days refusing to answer questions. Over the course of the week the commission tested every reason he gave for that silence, and each one fell away. On the third day Commissioner Baloyi asked him whether he was claiming the privilege against self-incrimination or simply protecting his defence strategy, and Matlala confirmed it was the second. Commissioner Khumalo then told him what the panel had concluded, which is that his real concern was not incriminating himself but naming other people.
The team that nearly withdrew
Matlala’s appearance on 24 August began with his legal team asking for the day to be postponed. Lead counsel Annelene van den Heever was ill and not in the room, and her juniors argued that his self-incrimination application could not properly be argued without her.
Chairperson Mbuyiseli Madlanga refused, then asked what would happen if he pressed on. Advocate Missi answered that the entire team, counsel and attorneys, would withdraw. Commissioner Baloyi asked her twice whether those were Matlala’s instructions, and she confirmed twice that they were. The instructing attorney came to the microphone and confirmed the same position.
Madlanga then ruled and turned to Matlala for confirmation. Matlala said he was in the dark, that he had been having lunch and had not concluded his own thinking on it.
Baloyi told Missi it was deeply problematic that the position had been put firmly as her instructions and now had to be discussed again. After an adjournment Matlala asked his team to stay on and the application was abandoned. He would claim privilege question by question instead.
Matlala’s team also told the commission that prison conditions were preventing proper consultation. At 11:36 that morning evidence leader Adila Hassim read a message into the record from Correctional Services Area Commissioner Khoza, who said the facts provided were not true, that the team had consulted for 3 days, and that the head of the centre had denied creating any disadvantage. Madlanga declined to decide between the 2 versions.
The shield that had already fallen away
The central fight over the 3 days was the sworn statement Matlala made when he negotiated a plea deal with the state on the SAPS health contract.
That statement named senior police officers. When the court offered a heavier sentence than the one agreed, Matlala had a choice in law, and on 13 July 2026 he walked away from the deal. The agreement and the statement both fell away with it.
Evidence leader Zelda Sello played a clip of the National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson confirming publicly that the plea was null and void and that nothing in it could be used. Matlala confirmed on the record that this was correct.
Baloyi put the problem to his counsel plainly. Matlala could not have his cake and eat it, refusing to answer on the basis of a document while arguing that the commission was not entitled to look at that document. If a witness could do that, Baloyi said, any witness could point at material nobody is allowed to see and end the enquiry there.
Madlanga then set the rule that governed the rest of the week, drawing on the Constitutional Court judgment of Justice Jafta. There would be no blanket claims. Matlala had to identify the offence and show how the answer touched it before claiming any privilege.
Every road to Sibiya ran through one sergeant
Matlala had been asked in writing to describe his relationship with Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, and had not dealt with it in either of his 2 statements. Commissioner Khumalo pressed him on the omission.
Under questioning he gave an outline. He first approached Sibiya over a lease dispute concerning a hospital at the SAPS College in Pretoria West, went back for feedback, and attended an engagement party for one of Sibiya’s children.
He also confirmed that he never once contacted Sibiya himself. Every meeting, every callback and every arrangement went through a Sergeant Nkosi, who supplied the email address and made the calls. Sello asked why a general investigating a kidnapping could not simply telephone him. Matlala said he did not know.
On the disappearance of Jerry Boshoga, Matlala said Sibiya requested the meeting and asked what he knew, and that Sibiya told him cracking that case would help him a lot. Matlala gave his own account of going to Boshoga’s house with Boshoga’s brother, and said the brother told him to ask Boshoga’s wife for the phone and to tell her it was going for investigation, which he did. That account is his own and it is untested.
His evidence on the engagement party also cuts against Sibiya’s. Sibiya told this commission he was only at that party to collect his wife. Madlanga put Matlala’s own parliamentary evidence to him, which describes him attending as an invited guest, and Matlala did not dispute it.
When Sello pressed him further on his discussions with Sibiya, Matlala changed his reason and said he did not want to disclose his defence strategy. Sello told him that fear of disclosing a defence is not a privilege recognised in law. Madlanga agreed, and observed that any witness could otherwise say the same about anything.
The document that proved the opposite
On 24 August Matlala promised documents proving he is a suspect. On 25 August the commission read them.
The main document was an order of the Special Tribunal granted in September 2025 on application by the Special Investigating Unit, freezing assets across 78 respondents. Hangwani Morgan Maumela is cited 3 times, including in his personal capacity. Matlala is not a respondent.
His companies do appear in an annexure listing 39 entities the order collectively describes as the Maumela Syndicate. Black AK Trading Suppliers, Cor Kabeng Trading and Suppliers and Falcon Cat Trading and Suppliers are on that list.
Madlanga took Matlala through the relevant paragraph and showed that the disclosure obligation runs to what the respondents own inside other people’s companies, and does not place those companies under investigation. Matlala accepted that the document does not show he is a suspect.
Khumalo then raised a separate point. When first asked to list his companies, Matlala named 3, and 2 of the entities in the annexure were not among them. Matlala said those were deregistered. Khumalo noted that the order is dated September 2025 and suggests otherwise.
Matlala was left relying on press reports, and admitted no investigator has ever approached him about a Tembisa Hospital investigation.
The same collapse happened over the police recordings he said put him at risk. Sello read a letter from the Director of Public Prosecutions dated 6 March 2026, addressed to Matlala’s own attorneys, which states that nothing in the interview forms part of any police document before the court and that it is not evidence against him. Matlala said he was not aware of it.
Millions on a handshake
With the shields gone, Sello turned to the money.
Matlala said he met Maumela around 2015 at a Sandton restaurant they both used, over a shared interest in sports cars, and accepted that they are friends.
He described an arrangement in which the 2 of them put their own money into a supplier’s bank account, using an example of a million rand each. Whichever of them won a quote from the Gauteng Department of Health would draw stock against that credit, supply it, and repay the money once the department paid, handing the other man 10 percent of the profit.
There was no written agreement between him and Maumela, and none with the supplier. The supplier was a single individual operating 2 companies, and Matlala could name only one of them. He said the arrangement ran from roughly 2018 to 2023 and could not say how much money went through it.
Sello told him she believed he was being deliberately vague, and made the point that a man who won a R360 million contract from the SAPS in 2024 could not be that confused about money. Madlanga observed that nothing in the arrangement as described points to a crime, which left nothing for a privilege claim to attach to.
The client who was not just a client
Matlala told the commission that the late taxi boss Jotham Msibi was purely a security client. The chats recovered from Msibi’s phone told a different story.
They include an aircraft purchase agreement Msibi sent him for a jet imported from an Angolan company, a proposal for a CAT VIP lounge at OR Tambo that Matlala shared with Msibi, and messages around Msibi’s 2022 wedding in which Matlala’s wife Cordelia is listed as a bodyguard and Matlala tells Msibi to deposit R350,000 and he will take care of the rest. Msibi called him son. He called Msibi Baba.
On 22 September 2023 Msibi asked whether to send the Nedbank one. Matlala replied that Nedbank was proof of payment, that this was what he wanted to show, and that the account was the one Maumela had nominated. On the same day he forwarded 4 Nedbank payment notifications, for R1.3 million, R200,000, an amount Sello read as R3 million while noting her own uncertainty about the figure, and R500,000.
The recipient on all 4 is a man named Agrippa Khoza. The reference on all 4 is M Maumela. The paying account holders are 2 companies Matlala says he does not know.
Sello established that a payment reference says nothing about who made the payment. Matlala then said he does not remember the payments, does not remember forwarding them, and does not know who Agrippa Khoza is. Baloyi told him it was unbelievable that he had no recollection whatsoever, given that on the same day he was telling Msibi which account Maumela had nominated.
Matlala eventually conceded that he had dealings with Msibi beyond security, specifically the attempted aircraft purchase.
R20 million against a dying contract
Matlala got to know businessman Steve Motsumi at Msibi’s wedding in 2022. In early 2024, Motsumi’s company lent R5 million to Medicare24 Tshwane. Matlala had previously told the commission there was a written loan agreement, and corrected himself on 25 August to say there is only an acknowledgement of debt.
He repaid the R5 million in 4 instalments between December 2024 and March 2025, drawn from 4 different companies of his. The interest was never paid, and his explanation was that he was arrested. Khumalo established that he resigned as a director of Medicare24 in December 2024 but retained his shares.
Through December 2024 and January 2025 Matlala visited Motsumi at his home repeatedly, and the chats record the estate access codes he was sent on 12 December, 31 December, 5 January, 16 January and 24 January. He was asking Motsumi for R20 million for the SAPS contract.
On 21 February 2025 he sent Motsumi the letter Medicare24 had written to Lieutenant General Fani, responding to a demand from the SAPS that threatened to cancel the contract for non-performance. Sello asked why he shared it. Matlala said it was the reason he needed more money to fund the contract.
There is no Madlanga task team
On 26 August Matlala refused to deal with Major General Lesetja Senona at all, on the basis that police had served him with a document saying he and Senona are being investigated for corruption. He repeatedly described the investigators as the Madlanga Task Team.
Hassim told him there is no such body. Madlanga went further, saying the entity had been incorrectly named, that the commission makes referrals and has no role after that, and that the task team is the SAPS one hundred percent.
Baloyi then set out the position in law. A witness may decline to answer on 2 grounds only, being legal professional privilege and the privilege against self-incrimination. Outside those, a witness who refuses is simply refusing, and that carries consequences.
The general he calls big brother
Matlala said he met Senona at Senona’s wedding in Soshanguve before 2020 and grew closer to him at the funeral of Msibi’s mother. He calls him big brother, and Nduna in the chats. When Senona was in Pretoria they met at Matlala’s apartment at Menlyn Maine, and they continued meeting until his arrest.
The day after police raided his home in December 2024, Senona gave him R20,000 because his phones had been seized and he could not transact.
Matlala repeatedly referred to a project he refused to describe. Madlanga eventually named it for him. It was a plan for Matlala and Senona’s son Thato to buy a Menlyn apartment worth between R2 million and R3 million and rent it out. Matlala submitted Thato’s identity documents to the estate agent. He refused to say who would pay, or whether Thato or the general would hold any interest in it. The purchase never completed.
In January 2025 Senona wrote to him about finalising a contract for the guys who assisted us. Matlala refused to say what contract or who those people are, saying only that they are under investigation.
Material also travelled the other way. In January 2025 Matlala forwarded Senona a screenshot from an internal SAPS finance system showing the status of his company’s payments, obtained by his head of operations from someone in the finance section. In February 2025 he sent Senona a video of a meeting in which General Nkhuoa said that if nothing arrived by Monday they would close, and that she had already directed the non-performance process to start.
On 14 April 2025, the day before he met the KwaZulu-Natal provincial commissioner, Matlala wrote to Senona asking him not to forget to ask our brother about that lady who is stirring problems. He confirmed the lady is General Nkhuoa and the brother is Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. Senona replied with a thumbs up. When the contract was cancelled in May 2025, Senona told him to take them on.
Matlala refused to say whether Senona received any financial benefit from the contract.
The docket
On 10 March 2025 Senona sent Matlala a police docket running to more than 200 pages. It contains the complaint of Esmael Nangy, together with his identity document, his marriage certificate, photographs of him, and the names, ranks and identity numbers of the officers complained against. Matlala said he did not ask for it.
Nangy lives in the same Midstream estate as Matlala, and their wives know each other because the children attend the same school.
Senona asked Matlala to speak to Nangy about withdrawing the charges. Hassim read out who the complaint was against, which includes a Durban metro officer, 2 men from a private security company, a captain and 2 colonels from the Hawks in KwaZulu-Natal, a constable, and Mkhwanazi as provincial commissioner. Hassim put it to Matlala that the request therefore served Senona’s own interests rather than Mkhwanazi’s.
Matlala also accepted that the withdrawal request was an exchange, made in return for Mkhwanazi speaking to General Nkhuoa about his purchase orders.
Matlala approached Nangy, who was willing. His brother-in-law refused. In Matlala’s account, the brother-in-law lost his voice and cannot speak anymore because of the torture. Matlala telephoned Senona and reported that the answer was no.
When Senona testified before this commission in January 2026, he said that call never happened, and that Matlala never told him anything about the withdrawal.
The Pearls
On 15 April 2025 Matlala met Mkhwanazi at an apartment in The Pearls in uMhlanga. Former Police Minister Bheki Cele arranged it, after an earlier attempt at Matlala’s Zimbali house failed because Mkhwanazi had a meeting with the King. Senona collected Matlala from the Oyster Box and drove him, although Matlala said it was walking distance.
There were 3 men in the apartment. Matlala confirmed that Senona sat about 3 metres away with a whisky and that the space is small enough for anyone in it to hear everything said. Senona has told this commission that he did not hear the discussion.
Matlala asked Mkhwanazi to speak to General Nkhuoa about his purchase orders. Mkhwanazi then asked him whether he knew of anyone in Gauteng who was paying Sibiya.
Van den Heever argued at length that Matlala could not be compelled to answer, relying on his constitutional fair trial rights and on litigation privilege. Hassim answered with the Constitutional Court’s finding that a person appearing before a commission holds the status of a witness, and is neither an arrested person nor an accused person. Madlanga overruled the objection and ordered him to answer.
Matlala said he told Mkhwanazi yes. He would not name the people. He said Mkhwanazi introduced Motsumi’s name into the conversation, and that he does not know whether Motsumi paid Sibiya.
Khumalo pressed him on how he knew Sibiya was collecting money at all. Matlala said he heard it from a third person, then described that person as a middleman, and then named him as Sergeant Nkosi, the same officer who arranged every meeting between him and Sibiya. Matlala said he does not know on whose behalf Nkosi was acting.
What he finally admitted
Hassim asked repeatedly how naming those people would incriminate him. Matlala said incriminating may be the wrong word, that he still has a case to present in court and is already saying a great deal, and asked to be left with half so that he can go to court with half, and not to be stripped naked.
Baloyi then put it to him that on this line of questioning he was not claiming the privilege against self-incrimination at all, but refusing because it would compromise his defence strategy. Matlala said she was correct.
Khumalo told him her conclusion was that his concern was not implicating himself, but implicating the people he had told Mkhwanazi were paying Sibiya. Madlanga said Khumalo was speaking for him as well.
Where it stands
Matlala remains under subpoena, with no date yet fixed for his return to the commission. His attempted murder trial in the Johannesburg High Court resumes on 31 August 2026.
The questions the commission set aside for later include whether Matlala gave Sibiya any gifts, money, sponsorship or other benefit. Those were stood down on 25 August and have not yet been answered.
