‘If decision to disband PKTT was made in good faith, Mchunu would have done prior analysis’: Khumalo

The head of crime intelligence, Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo, told the Madlanga commission he was never given the assessment report that led to the decision to disband the police killing task team (PKTT).

Khumalo said he was not consulted and never received any assessment that had informed suspended police minister Senzo Mchunu’s directive to deactivate the task team.

He found out about the news through social media.

Khumalo told the commission that in March 2024, he compiled an information note requesting financial authority for the 2024/25 financial year for the PKTT.

He explained that the national commissioner had approved R20m for the task team, in line with a recommendation from the CFO. The CFO’s note suggested that the task team be deactivated after the national elections and that a permanent structure be established in KwaZulu-Natal.

However, Khumalo said the national commissioner had disagreed, writing that “the task team will continue beyond elections, so long as there is work to be done”.

Khumalo said the decision to disband the PKTT thus contradicted the financial authority already granted for the full year.

“If in December you raise the issue to say, but the minister’s directive of immediate disbandment is also affecting the financial authority that is still on, there will be some sort of wasteful expenditure,” he said.

He said after the directive, he would have expected an instruction from his supervisor advising what he must do with the funds already committed until the end of March.

Khumalo said the PKTT was established because the normal units were failing to effectively investigate political killing cases, and that returning the cases to those units would not make sense because they were totally different from a task team.

He added that the directive also required him to submit a comprehensive closing report by January 16, a day before he received the letter.

He told the commission another directive he found confusing was that in the requested report he should provide an executive summary where he was expected to give the mandate, purpose, functions and reasons for disbanding the task team, even though he was not consulted and didn’t know the reasons for the decision.

“It’s one of the directives that when you go through and you want to comply, you end up being more confused than before you received it, because some of the parts one would have been able to give the mandate, to give the purpose and the functions, but now the last one that says the reasons for disbanding. One then was forced to ask the question, who decided to disband the task team? Now, why are you looking for reasons from a person who did not decide?” he said.

He also noted that the directive for him to include the analysis of the task team’s effectiveness and the impact on crime reduction, with specific reference to the PKTT’s mandate, should have been requested before the disbandment and not afterwards as per the directives.

“Now if I’m going to include it in the closing report. It is not going to make any sense because if the decision was taken in good faith, the minister would presumably have already done this analysis,” Khumalo told the commission.

“In his directive, the minister expressly stated that his observation was that further existence of this team was no longer required, nor was it adding any value to policing in South Africa. If the minister did not have any analysis of the PKTT’s effectiveness and impact on crime reduction at the time of his decision to disband, he could not, in good faith, have reached that conclusion that the PKTT was no longer required and added no value.”

Khumalo said another concerning aspect of the proposed report was that it had to include stakeholder feedback from organisations such as the NPA and State Security Agency in response to the announcement of the disbandment.

“In other words, when the minister took the decision to disband the PKTT, he apparently did not engage the NPA and SSA on the effects the disbandment would have on pending prosecutions and the general state and state security. This was further confirmation for me that the minister had not done the necessary due diligence.”

He also noted that Mchunu did not consult the individuals he should have consulted before making the decision.

He said he received numerous calls from families of deceased, both in cases still under investigation and those already finalised, who expressed their disappointment.

Khumalo said he did not comply with deputy national commissioner Gen Shadrack Sibiya’s letter due to a misunderstanding of what was required from him.

He said he could not justify the disbandment, nor could the national commissioner.

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