Questions arise over Gayton McKenzie's links to the drug trade Ad Hoc Committee
Parliament's Ad Hoc Committee raises critical questions about Minister Gayton McKenzie's alleged knowledge in the drug trade.
Image: Oupa Mokoena
SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has raised questions about what Minister Gayton McKenzie knows about drug dealing and drug trades.
This emerged during Wednesday’s sitting of Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee probing police and criminal justice corruption allegations when uMkhonto weSizwe Party MP David Skosana used his time when questioning Mkhwanazi about allegations made in a letter he received from a prisoner named Jermaine Prim.
Prim’s letter was briefly alluded to during the committee housekeeping meeting on Monday when the suggestion came up to have him appear before the committee.
The committee ultimately decided that, due to oral hearings concluding on Wednesday, it was too late to have either him or Thabo Bester appear.
Prim’s letter, which has yet to be published in its entirety, touches on conversations he allegedly had with tendepreneur Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala. Prim claims he shared a prison cell with Matlala at Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Facility, and he detailed the details of their conversations in this letter.
Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee heard on Wednesday during Mkhwanazi’s testimony that he came into possession of the letter via the MK Party.
Mkhwanazi confirmed that it was addressed to MK Party spokesperson Nhlamulo Ndhlela, and it came to him after Mkhwanazi’s cousin received it from Ndhlela’s father.
Mkhwanazi acknowledged that the letter constituted hearsay evidence, but in his testimony yesterday, he said that there were too many claims in it, which he knew to be true, that had not been included elsewhere, such as a private meeting that Mkhwanazi had with Matlala.
When Skosana began his questioning, he asked Mkhwanazi, “How did you get this message? It is a message from one prisoner called Jermaine Prim”.
“A cousin of mine that brought it to me,” Mkhwanazi said. “...I read a statement, and the majority of the things that came out of this statement, they corroborate the things that have already been presented before this committee and in the Madlanga Commission.”
Skosana asked: “If so, that does mean that when he says, in paragraph 7, that Honourable Gayton McKenzie made sure that he [Prim] is put in C-Max, because he has a voice recording, which links Honourable Gayton with drug dealers, and drug money?”
Mkhwanazi replied: “My reading and understanding of this, if I may. Almost all the paragraphs are narrating the stories of what he was told by Matlala, but in paragraph seven only, he is then expressing his own frustration.
“So the people he talks about in this paragraph (seven) are him telling ‘Cat’ Matlala. That's when the minister's name and other names are coming in. But the rest of this statement is what Matlala told him,” Mkhwanazi said.
Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu.
Image: File picture
Mkhwanazi was referring to the claim that Mchunu’s lawyers met with Matlala in prison. This emerged while evidence leader Norman Arendse was reading portions of the letter aloud on Wednesday.
Mkhwanazi had explained to Skosana that he found majority of the things that are written within the letter to be “worrying” and that “they need to be looked at”.
Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi Ad Hoc Committee KwaZulu-Natal police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi returns to face MPs.
Image: Ayanda Ndamane/ Independent Newspapers
“When this whole commission was announced, both Madlanga and the Ad Hoc Committee, Minister McKenzie, were among the vocal ones who said he's going to testify about the things he knows.