The Mayibuye Youth Movement notes with great concern that the number one general of SAPS the National Commissioner, Fannie Masemola who is entrusted with ensuring that the entire police machinery, from top to bottom, is coordinated, disciplined, and responsive to the safety of ordinary South Africans, is now himself implicated in a Medicare tender linked to the notorious Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.
This is the same office responsible for giving direction, enforcing discipline, and ensuring that every police station, every unit, and every officer responds to the daily reality of crime in this country. Yet that very centre is now shaken.
You cannot expect a system to fight crime when its highest command is entangled in dealings linked to those very networks.
That is why we say SAPS is compromised.
Because what we are witnessing is not an isolated incident it explains the lived reality of our people.
Our communities are flooded with drugs. Nyaupe is destroying a generation in the townships.
Gang violence has become normal.
Victims of gender-based violence continue to wait for justice that never comes.
At the same time, those entrusted with protecting society are now linked to corruption and criminal networks.
So what must South Africans conclude? That the system meant to protect them has been captured.
This capture is not abstract it is happening under the political leadership of President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC. The ANC cannot distance itself from this. It is unfolding under their watch, within institutions they lead and control.
The ANC has become an enabler of this decay.
At the same time, government must begin to take responsibility for how it prioritises resources. While commissions are established and funded to probe political interference within the criminal justice system, communities are still waiting for basic answers.
Young people remain unemployed.
Villages still face water shortages.
Access to education remains unequal.
The same urgency, energy, and resources directed towards commissions like the Madlanga process must also be directed towards fixing these lived crises and more importantly, towards cleaning up the security cluster itself.
We further state, without hesitation, that any form of intimidation against whistleblowers must be condemned particularly against Lieutenant General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, who has brought some of these issues into the public domain.
Those who speak out must be protected, not intimidated by some leaders who lead organisations that are not growing, “fiefdoms”.
The Mayibuye Youth Movement is clear to say that all those implicated whether the President, the Minister, the National Commissioner, or anyone else must face the full might of the law.