‘GAYTON KNOWS’: Mkhwanazi on minister’s links to drug trade after letter from Cat Matlala’s pal

SAPS KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi has raised questions about what Minister Gayton McKenzie knows about drug dealing and drug trades.

This emerged during Wednesday’s sitting of the Parliament’s Ad Hoc Committee when uMkhonto weSizwe Party’s (MK Party) David Skosana used his time when questioning Mkhwanazi about allegations made in a letter he received from a bandiet named Jermaine Prim.

Prim’s letter, which has yet to be published in its entirety, touches on conversations he allegedly had with murder-accused and alleged “Big Five Cartel” member Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala. 

Prim claims he shared a prison cell with Matlala at Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Facility, and he detailed the details of their conversations in this letter.

Mkhwanazi acknowledged that the letter constituted hearsay evidence, but in his testimony on Thursday, he stated that there were too many claims in it, which he knew to be true, that had not been included elsewhere, such as a private meeting that Mkhwanazi had with Matlala.

Skosana asked: “If so, that does mean that when he says, in paragraph 7, that Honourable Gayton McKenzie made sure that he [Prim] is put in C-Max, because he has a voice recording, which links Honourable Gayton with drug dealers, and drug money?”

Mkhwanazi replied: “My reading and understanding of this… almost all the paragraphs are narrating the stories of what he was told by Matlala, but in paragraph seven only, he is then expressing his own frustration.”

Mkhwanazi had explained to Skosana that he found the majority of the things that are written within the letter to be “worrying”, that he “had no reason not to trust most of the things that he said”, and that “they need to be looked at”.

Mkhwanazi added: “When this whole commission was announced, both Madlanga and the Ad Hoc Committee, Minister McKenzie was among the vocal ones who said he’s going to testify about the things he knows.

“Which makes me believe that he knows things that perhaps might also assist in things that we are raising, which is drug-related.

“When this man mentions his name here, perhaps it might be a different investigation altogether that might need to be investigated.”