Madlanga Commission | Shadrack Sibiya says PKTT 'not a good idea', needed to be disbanded

Suspended SAPS Deputy National Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya has criticised the existence of the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT), arguing that its focus on politicians' murders was unwarranted because "politicians don't die every week or every second week". 

Testifying at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Thursday, Sibiya said he supported the idea to dismantle the PKTT and have their resources redistributed to the murder and robbery unit found in all provinces.

"I have murder and robbery unit everywhere in the country. We also have murder and robbery unit in KwaZulu-Natal but we also have a duplicate unit that is running on its own when we have murder and robbery unit," he said.

He told the commission that among the many cases investigated by the PKTT only about 60 were politically motivated killings. 

"It does not necessarily mean that when a child of a councillor was killed in shebeen (that) is a political case, but it will (classified) as something like that," he said.

According to him, the PKTT would handle cases that were not related to political killings, saying some of them were "just plain murder".

"Now you have a unit that is just investigating everything when in fact there are units (murder and robbery units)," Sibiya said.

He said he supported the assertion that the PKTT "is not a good idea" because every time when police officers are deployed to  task teams they often leave behind at least 600 or 500 dockets, which are either allocated to other officers or left unattended.

Sibiya told the commission that he was not surprised about the December 31, 2024 letter written by suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu announcing the PKTT disbandment. 

According to him, this was because there had been several consultative meetings as a build-up to the announcement.

In addition, he said there had been several complaints, including the one filed by Professor Mary de Haas to Mchunu, through Parliament.

De Haas alleged that PKTT was abusive and amounted to a gross wastage of personnel and financial resources, noting that these issues arose while KwaZulu-Natal SAPS police chief Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi was in charge.

Sibiya testified on Wednesday that De Haas also called for the immediate disbandment of PKTT and an urgent establishment of a judicial oversight body to investigate its operation, cases and related matters.

But evidence leader Advocate Adila Hassim SC pointed out that it seems “very peculiar” that only one task team has been singled out while there are other task teams with bigger budgets that have been in operation for years.

She mentioned that "a mere complaint" by De Haas is not sufficient to take action against that team, adding that the appropriate thing would have been to investigate the complaint. 

Sibiya argued that as compared to taxi people who are killed often that was not the case for politicians.

"Politicians don't die every week or every second week," adding that the PKTT budget could be better utilised as the task team members spent time "just sitting in hotels".

He pointed the commission to the 2019 work study he learnt about in 2024 suggesting the PKTT should fall under the murder and robbery unit.

He concurred with a PKTT report that in 2024, they registered successes in their work.

Explaining what changed his attitude towards PKTT, he said: "From where I am sitting the capacity in KZN does not exist in Cape Town where I am sitting with gang violence, where people are dying every day."

He cited there were other political killings taking place elsewhere in the country like in Mpumalanga that had not been attended to by the PKTT.

He reiterated that his role in the PKTT disbandment was only to follow instructions from the SAPS national commissioner General Fannie Masemola, saying: "The sentiment that says you are the senior manager you should have applied your mind does not work."

Sibiya's testimony will resume on Friday. 

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