Did Matlala Waste Our Time? Inside the Testimony He Wrote To Avoid Giving
Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala’s written statement to the Madlanga Commission answered almost none of the questions put to him, leaving out 10 of the 28 people he was asked to explain his relationship with. But under questioning from the Commissioners on 17 August 2026, he gave sworn evidence linking a middleman, a former Minister of Police and an Ekurhuleni metro police commissioner to money, a High Court application and a warrant for his own arrest. Two of his loan accounts also collapsed into contradiction on the day.
Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala gave testimony before the Madlanga Commission for the first time on 17 August 2026, Day 160 of the hearings. His written statement runs to 10 pages. It answers almost nothing.
This was not his first appearance before the Commission. On 15 July 2026 his legal team applied for a postponement, arguing that his pending criminal matters made immediate testimony prejudicial to him. Madlanga granted it. A month later, on Day 160, that same prejudice argument was still there, but this time in the form of a privilege claimed over entire subject areas rather than a request to wait.
The Commission had served him with what is called a Regulation 10.6 notice, a written list of questions a witness must answer under oath before appearing in person. Matlala’s notice ran to 7 pages and attached a list of 28 people, asking him to explain how he met each one, how often they spoke, and whether he gave any of them money, gifts or favours.
He engaged with 5 of the 28 names. He refused to answer on 13 of them as a block, because they are his co-accused in the Medicare24 police tender case, a list that starts with national police commissioner General Fannie Masemola. That refusal was at least explained. The remaining 10 names he simply left out, with no explanation anywhere on paper. That list includes Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, Lieutenant General Khosi Senthumule, former General Sandra Thema, Major General Lesetja Senona, Major General Richard Shibiri, Lieutenant Colonel Maluleke, Sergeant Fannie Nkosi, and Ekurhuleni metro police commissioner Julius Mkhwanazi.
The reason Matlala gave, repeatedly, is the right not to incriminate himself. He is an accused person in two separate criminal matters, and that right applies to him like it applies to any South African facing charges. But he was not raising it question by question. He was raising it over entire subject areas and extending it to anything that touched them.
Evidence leader Advocate Mahlape Sello told him the fear of self-incrimination has limits in law and in life. Commission chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga said on one question about money moving out of a company bank account that he would be very surprised if the law ever allowed the privilege to stop that kind of question being asked. On a separate question about vehicles allegedly delivered to General Sibiya, Madlanga said that without an actual investigation into that specific matter, there is nothing to incriminate himself about, and the privilege would not apply. Commissioner Sesi Baloyi asked Matlala directly whether he knew, as a fact, that there is an investigating officer looking into those vehicles. He said he did not know that for certain, only that a recording under investigation mentions the vehicles somewhere inside it.
Madlanga also asked Matlala why he went completely silent on some questions instead of at least claiming the privilege, as he had done elsewhere. Matlala said the statement was drafted by his attorney, that he gave his attorney his own account of the questions, and that he could not explain why some answers were left out. On the question about General Feroz Khan’s disciplinary hearing, which his statement skipped, he said it was an oversight and that he had no reason not to deal with it.
The document criticised throughout the day is one Matlala says he did not write himself.
What the statement avoided, the questioning drew out. Matlala’s written answer on Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, the KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner, was a single line saying they had met once and had no relationship. Under questioning, that line grew. He said he asked for the meeting himself, that it took place in Durban in April 2025 with General Senona present, and that two things were discussed: the Medicare24 tender, and a warrant that existed for his arrest on the Johannesburg attempted murder case. Matlala was arrested on that case on 14 May 2025, about a month after the meeting.
Matlala then gave an account of a man named Brown Mogotsi, who he says phoned him two days after a police raid on his home on 6 December 2024, claiming to call from the office of the Minister of Police and offering to help him open a case against the police. Matlala said he paid Mogotsi money he remembered as R20,000 for police experts, then R150,000 for the ANC’s 8 January celebration, plus flights. None of this has been tested and Mogotsi has not given his version at the Commission.
Matlala went further, testifying that he was then introduced to former Minister of Police Bheki Cele in KwaZulu-Natal, showed Cele his communications with Mogotsi, and that Cele told him to keep paying so that Mogotsi might lead them to current Minister of Police Senzo Mchunu. He said Cele told him Mchunu wanted General Dumisani Khumalo out of Crime Intelligence and General Khan put in that position. He also said Cele told him that if he withdrew an urgent High Court application against the police, Cele would arrange for his firearms to be returned, and that this is what happened.
Take note, this is Matlala’s account, given under oath but tested by nobody. Cele has not responded to it.
Matlala also admitted, when the Commission broke the question down directly, that Julius Mkhwanazi, the Ekurhuleni metro police commissioner whose name his statement skipped entirely, is a friend. He said his company provided free security for a State of the City address by former mayor Tania Campbell, and that the two of them grew close afterwards. Asked whether they had ever discussed anything meant to contractually bind the metro police, Matlala called it a tricky question and did not answer it. Commissioner Sandile Khumalo later noted that a clinic linked to Matlala had a COVID-era relationship with the Ekurhuleni municipality, and that a company owned by Matlala’s wife, Buena Vista Learning Academy, had provided training services to the City of Ekurhuleni.
On money, Matlala confirmed a R5 million loan from businessman Steven Motsumi with no security or written guarantee, though he said it had been repaid. He first placed the loan at the end of 2024, but Commissioner Khumalo pointed out that the Medicare24 contract was awarded in June 2024, which would place a late-2024 loan after the tender rather than before it. Matlala then moved the date to early 2024 and said the loan related to a different business entirely.
He also confirmed a R15 million loan from a man named Suliman Carrim, arranged through a company Matlala could only name as Tamiz, with no written agreement. He said Carrim would be repaid 10 percent of everything the police paid Medicare24. His written statement describes this as a funding agreement with a company belonging to Carrim. Under questioning, Matlala said the agreement was oral and personal, between himself and Carrim directly. The two versions do not match.
Matlala also placed Carrim, along with three other men, Ignatious Mothakathi, Andrew Boy Mthethwa and Katiso Molefe, at a farm belonging to the late taxi owner Jotham Msibi, whose close protection Matlala’s company had provided. Commissioner Khumalo asked whether this is the same farm described by Sergeant Fannie Nkosi in earlier testimony. Matlala confirmed it is.
The Commissioners were open about how the day went. Commissioner Baloyi told Matlala’s counsel, Advocate Annelene van den Heever, on three separate occasions that answering factual questions on her client’s behalf was improper. Madlanga said Matlala’s privilege claims were being raised in very broad and general terms and that he wants their basis fully set out. Advocate Sello said near the end of the day that it felt like the can was being kicked down the road, but that the Commission would catch up with it eventually.
Madlanga ruled that Matlala’s supplementary statement and any legal application must be filed by 10:00 on 21 August 2026, the Commission’s response by 10:00 on 22 August, and any reply with written legal argument by 18:00 that same day. Matlala is set to return to testify on 24 and 25 August, continuing on 26 August if required. Madlanga said there would be no tolerance for slippage on those deadlines.
Matlala was arrested on the Johannesburg attempted murder case on 14 May 2025, before the Madlanga Commission existed. But the corruption charge relating to the Medicare24 tender, the one now covering General Masemola and 12 other police officers, was only laid on 24 March 2026, months into the Commission’s work and after everyone involved knew Matlala would eventually have to testify. That charge is what now gives him legal grounds to stay silent on the exact subject this Commission most needs him to explain.
The postponement he won on 15 July 2026 shows the prejudice argument was already being made and already working before that charge existed. By the time he actually testified a month later, the pending matters he had once used to delay his appearance had become the reason he could refuse to answer once he was in the chair.
