Vusimusi Matlala took his seat before retired Constitutional Court judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga on Wednesday, facing the full weight of a 10-month inquiry that has methodically dismantled the reputations of some of South Africa’s most senior police officers.
The 49-year-old businessman has been held in police custody for more than a year on an attempted murder charge he denies. His appearance before the Madlanga Commission’s panel marks the first time he has been required to address the specific gifts, financial transfers, and personal favors that witnesses have described in painstaking detail since September. His earlier testimony to a parliamentary corruption inquiry last November allowed him to deny wrongdoing and claim ignorance of senior police officers and politicians, but that session did not touch the granular allegations that have since piled up in public hearings.
Those allegations are striking in their specificity. Suspended deputy police chief Maj-Gen Shadrack Sibiya allegedly received 20 impalas from Matlala around the time the businessman was awarded a police contract. Sibiya has denied it, insisting he would never accept anything from a service provider. Brig Rachel Matjeng, who oversaw the contract awarded to Matlala, testified that she had an on-off romantic relationship with him that included lavish gifts, among them shots of the weight-loss drug Ozempic. Shibiri and Matjeng have since been fired from the police force.
Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri, head of the police’s organized crime unit, admitted receiving a personal loan of 4,000 dollars from Matlala, which he repaid. Shibiri said the money covered repairs to his son’s car and denied a close friendship with Matlala, despite frequent contact and personal advice. Shibiri has also been fired.
Meanwhile, the allegations have reached into local government. Julius Mkhwanazi, who served as Ekurhuleni’s acting police chief, allegedly arranged for blue lights and sirens to be fitted on Matlala’s personal vehicles. Mkhwanazi, now suspended, denied the allegations but admitted receiving money from Matlala, describing him as a “blood brother” during his commission testimony.
Matlala’s rise to prominence came only three years ago, when his name surfaced in reports about alleged tender irregularities at a state hospital, which he denied. What is known of his earlier life comes largely from his own account to parliament last year. Born in 1976 during apartheid, he grew up in a township east of Pretoria, raised by a single mother who later, in his words, “disappeared” on him, leaving him to survive as a street child. He reunited with her in 2002 when she was terminally ill. After her death, he learned she had been sexually assaulted, which he attributed to myths surrounding her albinism.
After leaving school, Matlala said he started informal businesses and faced multiple arrests for crimes including possession of stolen goods, house robberies, a cash-in-transit heist, and assault. He denied involvement in all but a 2001 conviction for stolen goods, for which he served prison time. He was either acquitted or had charges withdrawn in the remaining cases. His nickname “Cat,” he explained to lawmakers, came not from any ability to escape trouble but from his large family of nine children.
He told parliament he turned his life around in 2017 by registering his first formal business providing security services, then expanded into healthcare. That expansion led to contracts with a hospital and then the police, despite no prior track record in healthcare provision. The speed of that trajectory is precisely what the commission has been examining.
In May 2025, Matlala was arrested and charged with attempted murder, a charge he denies. His wife faces the same charge and has been granted bail. He was later charged with corruption related to providing health services to the police. Last month he pleaded guilty as part of a prosecution deal, then withdrew that plea after the agreement fell apart.
The commission’s reach has extended to two successive police ministers. Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was accused of indirectly receiving financial campaign money from Matlala for his “political endeavours,” which Mchunu denied. Mchunu’s predecessor Bheki Cele admitted knowing Matlala for a couple of months and staying at his Pretoria penthouse twice, but denied receiving money. Matlala told parliament he had paid Cele a 500,000 rand “facilitation fee” after police returned seized firearms, and alleged Cele made additional requests for help purchasing a home and funding his son’s studies, requests Matlala said he refused.
Matlala’s testimony on Wednesday may finally clarify whether the pattern of gifts, loans, and payments described by so many witnesses reflects a deliberate strategy to capture police leadership, or something more improvised. That question has hung over the commission since September, and South Africans watching the inquiry are still waiting for an answer. More details are available at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq3q75y40do.