Poetic Licence: Cats fund ministers and pitbulls police them

Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala calls suspended Deputy National Police Commissioner Shadrack Sibiya “Pitbull”. Once he locks his teeth onto you, you don’t escape, unless you pay. His ears, it seems, perk up to the jingle of cold cash instead of justice.

At the Madlanga Commission this week, Witness C, a detective attached to Gauteng counterintelligence operations, pulled back the curtain on a theatre of rot. Through a crackling voice recording, the nation overheard the purr of the Cat as he spoke of cash drops to the Pitbull, R500 000 at a time. The alleged payments flowed like hush money in an underworld built inside the state, where contracts are cancelled, tenders resurrected and reputations destroyed at the stroke of a police pen.

In the audio clip played before the Madlanga Commission on Thursday morning, Matlala can be heard allegedly describing Sibiya as a corrupt ally, a man who helped him secure a lucrative R360 million police contract. But in politics and crime alike, debts have a way of demanding repayment, with interest. It is interesting because when it comes to favours and schemes, payback always redeems

The rot in SAPS is no longer whispered in corridors. It festers in plain sight, a gaping wound eating at itself. The Commission heard that the tender tycoon who allegedly funded Minister Senzo Mchunu’s ANC presidential ambitions also had police generals on speed dial, men whose duty was to investigate crime, not curate it.

This is not just about a few crooked cops. It’s about a culture of collusion where uniforms are traded for envelopes and evidence bends under the weight of influence. A police service meant to serve the people has become a cartel of loyalty and leverage.

Each testimony at the Madlanga Commission feels like the sound of democracy coughing up blood. The Pitbull, the Cat, the Minister, all caught in a circle of mutual survival. In this ecosystem, money buys silence, silence buys power and power buys protection. The public, as always, pays the price; in fear, in lost faith, in the slow erosion of justice.

We have seen this movie before: commissions come, names are named, files are thick with evidence, and then, the quiet. The pitbulls retire comfortably, the cats land on their feet, and the public moves on, exhausted.

But this time feels different. Perhaps because the rot has run so deep, it can no longer hide its stench. Perhaps because even the wolves within the system are starting to turn on each other. Or perhaps because South Africans, broke and bruised, have finally run out of patience for leaders who preach integrity while pocketing bribes.

The Madlanga Commission may yet be our last chance to disinfect the wound. But only if its findings bite hard. Because when the guardians of the law sell their loyalty, the republic itself is on sale.

And in this country of animals, where cats fund Ministers and pitbulls police them, it seems justice has long stopped being man’s best friend.