Cedric Nkabinde, chief of staff to suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, revealed before Parliament’s ad-hoc committee that Mchunu directed him to refer MP Fadiel Adams’s complaint against National Commissioner Fannie Masemola to the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC).
Cedric Nkabinde, the chief of staff to suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu, told Parliament’s ad-hoc committee that he acted on Mchunu’s instruction to refer a complaint against SAPS National Commissioner Fannie Masemola to the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC). The referral concerned a dossier lodged by MP Fadiel Adams of the National Coloured Congress, alleging fraud, nepotism and obstruction within crime-intelligence and police systems.
In his testimony, Nkabinde explained that Adams’s email to Mchunu’s office stated he had lost confidence in Commissioner Masemola and requested an independent investigation. Nkabinde said the deputy minister deemed the matter no longer fit for internal police channels and instead directed it toward IDAC — the only body he considered “appropriate” given the national commissioner’s position.
Parliament’s evidence leader, Advocate Norman Arendse, challenged the adequacy of the referral, claiming it was “entirely inappropriate” and triggered the arrest of crime-intelligence head Dumisani Khumalo as part of a move to discredit the Political Killings Task Team (PKTT). Nkabinde defended his decision, arguing the complaint straddled both service-delivery and criminal-investigation lines and that Adams had explicitly sought an external probe.
