Tenderpreneur Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala, a figure at the centre of an alleged irregularly awarded SAPS R360m healthcare contract, has provided details about meeting KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi.
Matlala’s company was awarded the deal in June last year but it was ultimately cancelled due to alleged irregularities.
In his testimony before parliament’s ad hoc committee on Wednesday, Matlala said he met Mkhwanazi in April.
Matlala said the meeting was arranged by then-police minister Bheki Cele to discuss the issue of his SAPS contract.
In one of their meetings, he said Cele kept asking him for money.
“I told him SAPS is not paying me in time and I don’t get purchase orders ... Though the contract is there I’m not getting a lot of money that you guys assume I’m making.”
It was during this conversation that Cele allegedly suggested he speak to Mkhwanazi, describing him as being closer to an influential police official, referred to only by the surname Nkhuna. This, Matlala claims, led to Cele arranging the April meeting.
Matlala recounted the conversation with Mkhwanazi saying, “He knows about my problem that they don’t give us enough work and they just send work in dribs and drabs so they don’t breach the contract, but if it was up to them they wouldn’t send purchase orders at all. They’d send small purchase orders so that they can keep you entertained.”
The conversation quickly escalated, focusing on an internal push within SAPS to terminate the contract.
Mkhwanazi allegedly confided in Matlala about a conversation he overheard. Mkhwanazi purportedly told Matlala that during a SAPS meeting, Nkhuna had asked national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola about the timing of the contract’s cancellation. Mkhwanazi allegedly said he spoke with Mchunu last year when the decision was made for the contract to be cancelled.
Matlala recounted Mkhwanazi’s suspicions regarding the reasons for the minister’s apparent change of heart on the cancellation. Mkhwanazi allegedly suspected that the senior official was working with suspended deputy national commissioner for crime detection Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya.
Matlala claims the discussion then moved to the root cause of the contract issues: Lt-Gen Nkhuna’s alleged resistance to the new service provider.
Mkhwanazi allegedly told Matlala that Nkhuna was pushing for the contract to be cancelled because she was working with the previous service provider and they were allegedly “giving her a lot of money”.
Matlala was allegedly presented with a difficult choice: “Now if you want to work with her are you going to offer her the same incentives that Metropolitan was offering her,” he recounted.
He said this made him realise he was in “deep trouble”. The alleged proposal continued with personal demands from Mkhwanazi: “I also want something for me,” Mkhwanazi is alleged to have said, revealing that there was a case opened against him at the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid).
The ad hoc committee is expected to continue hearing Matlala’s testimony on Thursday.
TimesLIVE
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.