Poetic Licence: R500m and how the war on drugs was lost in police vaults

They told us the war on drugs was being fought in dark alleys, in back rooms, in abandoned buildings where young lives go to disappear.

They did not tell us it was being fought, and lost, inside police vaults.

At the Ad Hoc Committee this week, a witness calmly described something that should have shaken the walls of the Republic.

R500 million worth of drugs. Not seized and destroyed. Not removed and forgotten.

Not buried in evidence lockers waiting for justice.

Stolen.

Carried out in bins. Captured on camera. Returned to the streets by the very hands sworn to protect them.

We are funding operations to clean our communities. Only for those operations to become supply chains.

We are investing in raids. Only for raids to become restocking exercises.

We are paying for justice. Only to be billed for betrayal.

Inside SAPS storage in Tshwane, drugs walked out the same way they walked in, escorted, organised, and protected by silence. CCTV footage existed. People saw it. DVDs held proof. Management, we are told, destroyed it.

Evidence erased. Truth shredded. Communities abandoned.

And somewhere in this maze of disappearance stands the former National Commissioner of the South African Police Service, Lieutenant General Khomotso Phahlane, accused of knowing, and doing nothing.

In this country, doing nothing is often the most violent act of all. Because when leadership looks away, crime learns to look forward.

The witness told Parliament that this theft happened over two years. Two years of poisoned streets. Two years of distorted justice. Two years of court cases collapsed because numbers no longer matched, samples no longer existed, and forensic trails were deliberately broken.

Files struck off the roll. Dealers released. Children recruited. Graves filled.

We speak of “drug lords” as if they operate only in mansions and luxury cars.But what if some of them wear uniforms? What if some of them clock in at 8am? 

What if some of them sign off on destruction orders that never happen?

We were also told that drugs dating back to 2015 are still sitting in safes. A decade later. Untouched. Undestroyed. Unresolved.

How many temptations does corruption need?

How many years before evidence becomes merchandise?

How long before justice becomes a joke?

This is not just about missing drugs.

Every gram that leaves a vault illegally, enters a classroom, a township, a prison cell, a hospital ward, a graveyard.

Every bag wheeled out in a bin is wheeled into a family’s collapse. And still, we are told corruption is “being addressed”.

Still, we are promised “internal investigations”.

Still, we are invited to trust institutions that keep bleeding us dry.

The Ad Hoc Committee and the Madlanga Commission are lifting the carpet. Underneath, they are finding rot. And perhaps the most painful truth is this: Many communities already knew.

They knew because drugs never disappeared.

They knew because dealers never lacked supply.

They knew because funerals never slowed down.

They knew the war on drugs was theatre. A performance funded by taxpayers.

Directed by corruption. Starring our children as casualties.