标签： Africa

South Africa’s high-stakes public inquiry into widespread police infiltration by organized criminal networks has wrapped up its second phase of hearings, delivering a string of explosive testimonies that have gripped the nation ahead of its final reporting deadline.

Modeled after a binge-worthy hit crime series, the inquiry launched last year after senior police general Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi went public with damning claims that crime syndicates had embedded themselves at the highest levels of South Africa’s police service and national government. The first public phase of the inquiry, led by retired Constitutional Court Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga, ran from September to December 2025, and the second iteration of the real-life investigation just concluded, with a new interim report submitted to President Cyril Ramaphosa this past Friday. Like the first interim document, this report remains classified, but the public hearings over the past two months have already laid bare shocking gaps in security, systemic graft, and mismanagement that have kept South Africans talking. Ahead of the third and final phase of hearings kicking off next month, here’s a breakdown of the most notable moments from 64 days of testimony from 32 witnesses.

One of the most high-profile cases to emerge from this phase centers on a controversial police healthcare tender awarded in 2024. Senior police brigadier Rachel Matjeng, who oversaw the bidding process, was called to testify over the award of a contract for police health services to Medicare24 Tshwane District, a company owned by infamous businessman Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. The contract was terminated just one year after it was signed, and Matjeng alongside more than a dozen other senior police officers have since been formally charged over their involvement in the tainted award process. None of the accused have yet entered pleas in court.

In a surprising testimony before the commission, Matjeng rejected allegations that she accepted kickbacks from Matlala, instead revealing the pair had maintained an on-again off-again romantic relationship that continued until Matlala’s arrest in 2025. She confirmed Matlala had gifted her multiple items, including doses of the popular weight-loss drug Ozempic that she had requested. She also pushed back on viral online rumors that Matlala had paid for a Brazilian butt lift procedure for her, telling the commission, “So, for me, from my boyfriend [Matlala], I only ask for Ozempic, unlike those that ask for BBL”.

Matlala, who was named by police crime intelligence leadership last year as a core member of the notorious “Big Five” drug trafficking and criminal cartel that the inquiry says also carries out contract killings, cross-border hijackings, and kidnappings, has not yet testified before the commission. He remains in custody facing 25 separate criminal charges, including attempted murder, and has denied all allegations against him. Anticipation is high that he will appear to respond to the claims during the final phase of hearings.

Beyond the tender scandal, the inquiry has focused heavily on the highly suspicious handling of two massive cocaine seizures just one month apart in 2021. The first seizure took place in southern Durban in June 2021, when officers intercepted 541 kilograms of cocaine hidden in a shipping container of animal bone meal, with an estimated street value of more than 200 million South African rand ($12 million). Just five months after the seizure, the entire cache of drugs was stolen from a poorly secured building owned by the Hawks, South Africa’s elite police anti-crime unit, in what investigators widely believe was an inside job.

Major General Hendrik Flynn, a senior Hawks official, detailed a long list of critical missteps made by officers leading up to the heist. These included failing to collect DNA or fingerprint evidence from the crime scene, and choosing to store the massive drug haul in an inadequately secured facility despite the availability of more secure storage options closer to core police hubs. “I am of the view that it is no coincidence and that the sequence of events is indeed… by design,” Flynn told the inquiry.

The second 2021 seizure, 700 kilograms of cocaine valued at roughly $17.3 million recovered from an industrial warehouse in southern Johannesburg in July, has also raised major red flags for investigators. The cocaine was hidden inside black bags among imported lorry parts for a prominent local transport company, arriving in the country via Durban’s port. Lieutenant Colonel Nkoana Sebola, another senior Hawks officer, told the commission the entire operation was suspicious, noting that the first officers on site were operating outside of their official jurisdiction and appeared to be carrying out an unauthorized heist.

One of those officers, Marumo Magane, is a desk-bound analytics officer with no prior experience in drug investigations or large-scale busts. He told the commission he was called to assist by a senior traffic officer, who also had no formal qualifications to handle drug seizures and claimed to have received an anonymous tip. The pair entered the logistics company’s premises without a valid search warrant, accompanied by an alleged informant, and asked an on-site employee to open the container to verify the tip. After being asked to wait until the container reached its final destination in southern Johannesburg, Magane ordered that the drug bags be loaded directly onto his work lorry.

Suspicious warehouse staff contacted local police, and eventually Hawks investigators arrived on scene. Magane repeatedly denied any intention to steal the seized drugs, though he admitted to a string of major procedural errors, including tampering with evidence and moving the haul to his personal police-issued vehicle without contacting the official crime scene processing unit. When Madlanga pressed Magane, saying, “You were clueless, and you knew that you were clueless,” the officer simply replied, “That is correct, commissioner.”

Magane and several other officers were arrested over their roles in the botched seizure, but all charges were dropped in 2022 after prosecutors concluded there was no reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. Even more alarming, the inquiry heard that after the remaining portion of the 700kg cocaine was moved to a forensic science laboratory for storage, a 2025 audit found 136kg of the haul was missing.

The inquiry also shone a spotlight on Oupa “Brown” Mogotsi, an alleged police informant, political fixer, and former African National Congress member who is accused of being a central facilitator for criminal groups looking to infiltrate the police force. Mogotsi denies all allegations against him, and made headlines when he told the commission he survived an assassination attempt in an area east of Johannesburg ahead of his first testimony last November, saying, “I ran for my life” after his car came under gunfire. South African police opened an investigation into the incident and seized his vehicle.

During that first November appearance, Mogotsi made sensational unsubstantiated claims that Mkhwanazi – the whistleblower whose allegations prompted Ramaphosa to launch the inquiry in the first place – and the Zulu king were both CIA spies, a claim he later retracted. He was scheduled to return for cross-examination in March, but the hearing was postponed after he claimed he was too ill to appear. Madlanga dismissed his submitted sick note as “useless”, and Mogotsi was compelled to appear in May.

Before responding to questioning, Mogotsi first attempted to have lead commission counsel Matthew Chaskalson removed from the case, alleging bias and claiming Chaskalson was trying to coerce him into implicating another witness. After his motion was rejected, Mogotsi refused to answer most questions on the grounds that he could self-incriminate. In a striking turn of events just after his testimony concluded, Mogotsi was arrested by the Commission’s Recommendations Task Team (CRTT), a specialized police unit launched earlier this year to investigate referrals and evidence arising from the inquiry. The unit has made five high-profile arrests in recent months, many connected to the inquiry’s work. Mogotsi is facing a slew of charges related to the alleged assassination attempt, with prosecutors accusing him of faking the attack to garner public sympathy. He has vehemently denied the allegations and is currently applying for bail.

The Madlanga Commission is set to wrap up its work and submit its final public report to President Ramaphosa in August, when the full scope of the inquiry’s findings will finally be made available to the South African public.

In a deeply divisive legislative move that has drawn sharp international backlash, Ghana’s parliament has passed a sweeping new bill that criminalizes identifying as LGBTQ+ and promoting LGBTQ+ rights across the West African nation. The legislation, which now heads to President John Dramani Mahama for final ratification, carries penalties of up to three years in prison for anyone who openly identifies as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer. Even self-identified allies – people who support equal rights for LGBTQ+ communities – face potential imprisonment under the text, with narrow exceptions carved out only for legal professionals, journalists, and healthcare workers who cover the community or provide life-saving care. A key mandate in the bill also imposes a legal requirement on ordinary Ghanaians to report any suspected prohibited activities related to LGBTQ+ people to local law enforcement.

Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, the ruling party Member of Parliament who sponsored the bill, defended the legislation to reporters immediately after the final parliamentary vote, framing it as a defense of Ghana’s traditional cultural and family structures. He emphasized that the new law would strengthen the country’s existing colonial-era restrictions on same-sex relations, which have been in place since British rule, making the existing regulatory framework “more robust, more encompassing, and more stringent” in addressing LGBTQ+ practices.

The push for strengthened anti-LGBTQ+ legislation comes after years of pressure from conservative religious leaders, who have pushed Mahama to enact tougher rules since he took office last January. The president has already signaled his clear support for the bill, stating shortly after his inauguration that he adheres to the belief that only two genders exist, and that marriage is exclusively an institution between a man and a woman. This is not the first time such legislation has moved through Ghana’s legislative process: a nearly identical bill passed parliament in 2024, but it never became law after then-president Nana Akufo-Addo declined to sign it amid ongoing legal challenges and widespread international pressure.

Global and regional human rights groups have roundly condemned the new legislation, warning that it poses an immediate and severe threat to the safety and basic human rights of LGBTQ+ Ghanaians. Human Rights Watch, one of the most prominent international organizations to oppose the bill, was an early critic, formally calling on Ghana’s constitutional and legal affairs committee to scrap the legislation entirely during its review phase last year. The organization says the new law not only puts LGBTQ+ people at heightened risk of violence, arrest, and systemic discrimination, but also creates a culture of civilian surveillance by encouraging ordinary citizens to monitor and report on their neighbors, colleagues, and family members.

The approval of Ghana’s bill marks the latest in a growing wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation across the African continent in recent years. In March of this year, Senegal’s parliament passed a similar law that imposes maximum 10-year prison sentences for same-sex sexual activity and criminalizes public advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights. Two years prior, Uganda enacted one of the harshest anti-LGBTQ+ laws in the world, introducing the death penalty for certain same-sex offenses and long prison sentences for anyone who promotes or identifies as LGBTQ+.

ACCRA, Ghana – In a landmark legislative vote that has reignited global debate over LGBTQ rights in West Africa, Ghana’s parliament passed a harsh new anti-LGBTQ bill Friday that introduces steep prison sentences for a range of activities connected to same-sex relations, from public advocacy to personal engagement.

The legislation, which incoming President John Dramani Mahama has already signaled he will sign into law, marks a major expansion of existing restrictions on LGBTQ people in the country. Under the bill’s terms, anyone found guilty of promoting or advocating for LGBTQ rights can face up to 10 years behind bars, while people who engage in same-sex sexual activity face three-year prison sentences. Operating a space for same-sex intimacy carries a five-year prison term, and the bill also formally bans all funding for LGBTQ organizations and related activities.

This outcome is the culmination of years of pressure from conservative religious groups that have long pushed for stricter anti-LGBTQ policies in Ghana. An earlier version of the bill cleared parliament in 2024, but then-president Nana Akufo-Addo refused to sign it into law, leaving the legislation in limbo. Undeterred, religious leaders and bill supporters kept up their advocacy through the 2024 election cycle, and Mahama ran on a platform aligned with conservative cultural values, giving the bill new life after his election.

Ghana is now part of a growing wave of African nations moving to entrench broader anti-LGBTQ laws into their national legal frameworks. Across the continent, 31 of 54 countries already criminalize same-sex sexual relations, many of which carry penalties including life sentences and even the death penalty in nations such as Somalia, Uganda, and Mauritania. The push for stricter laws has broad popular support in many socially conservative African countries, even as it draws fierce condemnation from the international human rights community.

Supporters of the new Ghanaian bill frame it as a necessary defense of indigenous cultural values and traditional family structures, arguing that LGBTQ rights run counter to widely held Ghanaian social norms. But critics warn that the law undermines fundamental constitutional protections for all Ghanaians and will open the door to systemic discrimination, harassment, and violence against sexual minority groups.

Human Rights Watch has issued a strong condemnation of the legislation, calling on Ghana’s government to uphold international human rights standards that guarantee equal treatment, freedom from discrimination, freedom of expression, and the right to privacy for all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Same-sex relations were already criminalized in Ghana under a colonial-era law that bans so-called “unnatural carnal knowledge,” but the new bill vastly expands that criminalization to include not just private same-sex activity, but also public advocacy, community organizing, and financial support for LGBTQ communities. This expansion carries tangible economic risks as well: when the earlier version of the bill was under consideration, Ghana’s Finance Ministry warned that enacting the legislation could put billions of dollars in international development financing and partner support at risk, a warning that remains unaddressed in the latest version of the bill.