The Madlanga Commission of Inquiry has delivered a scathing interrogation of the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption’s (IDAC) investigation into senior Crime Intelligence officers accused of siphoning millions from the secret service account, raising fundamental questions about whether the probe was legally justified from its inception.
At the heart of the commission’s scrutiny is the Section 27 referral affidavit submitted by National Coloured Congress Member of Parliament Fadiel Adams, which triggered the investigation that led to the arrest of Crime Intelligence head Lieutenant General Dumisani Khumalo and six other senior officials in June last year. Commissioner Sesi Baloyi challenged IDAC lead investigator Colonel Brian Padayachee on whether the affidavit contained sufficient grounds to justify an investigation, pointing to a glaring omission in the document.
“Where does that suspicion come from? He doesn’t say that,” Baloyi pressed Padayachee, referring to the lack of explanation in Adams’ affidavit for suspecting money had been siphoned from the Secret Service Account. When Padayachee struggled to articulate the basis for the investigation, Baloyi cut him off sharply: “I’m going to stop you because my question has nothing to do with the historical operations of the secret service fund” .
The commission also scrutinised apparent inconsistencies in the affidavit itself. The statement was commissioned in Cape Town by Chief Investigator Dylan Perumal but bore a Pretoria office stamp—a discrepancy that Commission Chairperson Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga described as “very unusual” . When Padayachee explained that investigators routinely travel with their official stamps, Madlanga appeared unconvinced, questioning whether Perumal “carries around his Pretoria stamp when he travels” .
Beyond the procedural questions, Justice Madlanga directly challenged the legal threshold for investigating allegations against Brigadier Dineo Mokwele, a civilian with a mechatronics background who was appointed to a senior Crime Intelligence post. The commission heard that Mokwele previously worked at BMW before being appointed as a brigadier, and the allegations against her centre on whether her appointment was irregular . Madlanga described the inference drawn from the allegations as a “quantum leap in logic,” noting that many people are appointed in SAPS for their expertise even if they lack conventional policing experience .
Padayachee, who has 44 years of law-enforcement experience, defended the IDAC’s actions, maintaining that the directorate has sufficient evidence to sustain the charges and that there had been no political interference in the investigations . The criminal case remains pending before the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court .
The Madlanga Commission, established by President Cyril Ramaphosa in July 2025 following serious allegations by KZN Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi about criminal syndicates infiltrating the criminal justice system, continues to probe the integrity of anti-corruption machinery itself . As the inquiry delves deeper into allegations against IDAC head Advocate Andrea Johnson and other senior investigators, the spotlight has turned uncomfortably on whether the very institutions tasked with fighting corruption have operated within the bounds of the law .
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