‘It came as a surprise’: Khumalo says he was not consulted about disestablishment of the PKTT

The head of crime intelligence, Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, said he was not consulted before suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu disbanded the political killings task team (PKTT).

Khumalo said the decision came as a surprise. He was continuing to present evidence at the Madlanga commission of inquiry in Pretoria on Wednesday.

“I had never been given an opportunity to brief the ministry. I’ve never received any complaints or signs of unhappiness. I was never consulted. When the letter was drafted and finalised, it came as a surprise to me,” he said.

The PKTT was established in 2018 to investigate politically motivated killings.

On December 31, Mchunu sent national police commissioner Gen Fannie Masemola a letter to “immediately” disestablish the task team and send a preliminary report by January 20, followed by a final and closing report later in the month.

Khumalo said he saw the letter circulating on social media.

“The letter, we see it circulating on social media, I think from the afternoon of January 1, which is the happiest day of the year. Everybody is in a jovial mood.

“From my personal perspective, it was not a happy New Year’s Day because I had to receive calls from more than 110 people who thought I am their leader asking me the same question, all of them. Unfortunately, I could not answer anyone who was asking what’s happening. In a normal situation, they expect communication affecting them to come via myself or my office,” he said.

I was never consulted. When the letter was drafted and finalised, it came as a surprise to me.

—  Head of crime intelligence, Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo

Khumalo criticised the language used in the letter.

“The only person who can understand the letter is the writer himself. All of us reading the letter, I’ve tried to read it more than 10 times, trying to make sense and understand, but failed to understand every paragraph and the choice of words.”

He said the language unsettled some members of the task team.

“Most were worried about the language used, to say, ‘How can we sacrifice and leave our families for six to seven years and then we are told we are valueless?’ I did not feel right.”

Khumalo said while the letter was not addressed to him as divisional commissioner of crime intelligence, two issues raised in it were directly linked to his roles as divisional commissioner and the project leader of the PKTT.

Testifying before parliament’s ad hoc committee investigating allegations of corruption in the criminal justice system made by KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi, Mchunu maintained he was well within his rights as a minister to issue the directive.

Defending his decision, Mchunu said part of the reason for disbanding the PKTT was due to budget constraints and the need for optimisation to allocate more resources to combat other crimes in the country instead of only focusing on political killings “in one corner of the country”.

Testifying before parliament’s ad hoc committee, Masemola said he was on leave when the letter to disband the PKTT was sent to him and could not attend to it immediately.

He said he was made aware of it by his colleagues on WhatsApp on January 2 after it was circulated on social media.

Masemola said his deputy, Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, pushed for the immediate disbandment of the PKTT, despite not being part of its operation.

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