The troubling question of impalas and police credibility

Corruption is not always revealed by sensational leaks or detailed forensic audits. Sometimes it reveals itself in a single, quiet question asked under oath. Were there impalas on your farm, or were there not?

That question, put to Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya during testimony at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry, may sound trivial. It is anything but.

In South Africa, the situation has deteriorated to the point that even wildlife issues are raising concerns about police integrity, highlighting just how low standards have become. South Africans are watching this commission because trust in the South African Police Service is delicate. A considerable number of individuals no longer anticipate receiving protection.

They hope someone arrives, preferably before the crime scene cools. Against that backdrop, every answer given by senior leadership matters. Especially the small ones. In any commission of inquiry, minor, verifiable facts are not distractions. They are tests. Investigators use them to measure consistency, memory, and candour.

A witness who evades the simple always falters on the serious. That is not cynicism. It is experience. Anyone who has ever watched a courtroom drama knows this, even if our real-life version comes without background music.

Sibiya’s evidence about the impalas followed a familiar and troubling pattern. He began with certainty. He said that no impalas had ever been brought to his home. The sense of certainty started to fade as the inquiry grew more intense, with mentions of WhatsApp conversations, delivery locations, and accusations concerning Vusimuzi Cat Matlala and approximately twenty impalas.

The story shifted. The animals were already living on the property before the farm was purchased a few years ago. There had only been a casual inquiry about sourcing replacements. Nothing ever came of it. With each clarification, qualifiers multiplied, and the original statement lost its shape. By the end, the impalas seemed to exist in a sort of quantum state, both present and absent depending on the question.

This is not how unembellished facts behave. Truth does not require constant adjustment under pressure. It remains stable because it is rooted. You either have impalas on your farm, or you do not. This is not a philosophical debate.

Impalas are not abstractions. They are regulated assets. Permits, veterinary documents, and a record of paperwork all regulate their movements. One does not acquire a herd by accident. Nor does one easily forget whether they are on one's land unless one’s definition of forgetfulness has become extremely flexible.

When a senior police officer, trained for decades to evaluate evidence and detect evasion, struggles to give a clear and consistent account of something so concrete, the inquiry necessarily shifts. The animals fade into the background. Credibility moves to the centre. Credibility is the foundation of policing.

Without it, authority becomes performative, and law enforcement starts to resemble theatre, complete with uniforms and lines that do not convince. This is what makes the moment so unsettling. A witness with Sibiya’s experience understands the stakes of testimony under oath. Incomplete, revised, or unclear responses force people into a difficult dilemma. Is this genuine forgetfulness or deliberate obfuscation?

Neither possibility reassures a country already exhausted by scandal and allergic to explanations that keep changing mid-sentence. That is why the impalas matter. They have become a symbol of a deeper problem within senior leadership.

A culture where accountability appears negotiable. Where the concept of truth is considered flexible. When commissions are treated as opportunities to manage damage instead of spaces for genuine openness.

Commissions exist to excavate truth. Not to host performances. South Africans have seen enough acting. What we lack is honesty delivered without footnotes. When testimony begins to resemble a public relations exercise, the commission's obligation intensifies.

The implications extend beyond any single individual. The issue at hand goes beyond just individual inconsistency; it reveals a broader breakdown in ethical leadership within the system. The legal situation is a key consideration. Misleading a commission of inquiry is a serious offence. Neither the size nor the topic provides an excuse for it.

A falsehood about something small can undermine the integrity of the entire process and may justify independent action by law enforcement bodies. Ironically, this is the kind of principle the police are meant to enforce.

South Africa has developed a habit of waiting. We wait for reports. We wait for recommendations. We wait for political consensus. When action is finally taken, the evidence is often outdated, and the public has typically shifted its focus to another controversy.

The law does not require this paralysis. Where prima facie indications of misconduct arise, parallel processes should follow immediately. Lifestyle audits. assessments about lying under oath. Asset tracing. These are not extraordinary measures. They are routine tools in a functioning constitutional state, and they can proceed alongside a commission rather than after it.

The public understands this instinctively. That is why the impala question resonated so widely. It revealed a crack in authority at the exact moment when clarity was most needed. Once doubt takes hold, it spreads quickly. If a lieutenant general cannot be unequivocal about what is on his own property, what confidence should the public have in his explanations of operational failures, intelligence breakdowns, or internal power struggles within a demoralised police service?

This is not about humiliation. It is about standards. Leadership in policing demands more than rank. It demands unimpeachable honesty. When that standard falters at the top, the entire institution weakens beneath it. The impalas were never a sideshow.

They were a mirror held up to power. What they reflected should trouble every South African who still believes that the law must apply equally, without fear or favour, especially to those entrusted with enforcing it.

Qwesha is a trade finance consultant with expertise in global commerce and risk management and regularly contributes to a number of publications