OP-ED – Madlanga and the age of impunity

*As first published by Business Day on 8 June 2026 On 1 June, the Madlanga Commission – the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System – resumed its hearings. The commission was established by President Ramaphosa in July 2025 after KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lt Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi alleged collusion between senior officers, politicians, prosecutors and intelligence operatives. Since then, it has documented the infiltration of organised crime networks into senior policing, most starkly through the Big Five syndicate’s reach into Gauteng’s law-enforcement leadership. This is all too familiar a pattern; one more expression of the corruption that has riddled countless South African institutions. It surfaced again last month at the Compensation Fund, where the Auditor-General has flagged seventy-one million rand of losses, fraudulent bank accounts, missing documents, and intercepted payments. This fund is paid for by South African employers, and it exists to protect South African workers. That it has been hollowed out so completely is a scandal. The failings that the Auditor-General has found in relation to the Compensation Fund – weakened controls, eroded governance, and the dissolution of internal accountability – will be familiar to anyone watching the Madlanga Commission. […]

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