Police Minister, Bheki Cele, has, for the first time, been implicated in the Zondo Commission.

State Capture Inquiry: What’s the latest?

South Africa’s Top Cop has been linked to a deeply-rooted corruption ring that was allegedly ran by the country’s Crime Intelligence (CI).

The mystery witness, a former CI operative who is known to the commission as Colonel Dhanajaya Naidoo, has lifted the lid on the political underworld, where politicians allegedly strongarmed law enforcement into protecting their corruption activities.

So far, we have heard interesting revelations about high-ranking CI operatives — whose identities have been protected — and details of the terror he has lived through since he got into the witness protection programme for blowing the whistle.

Embattled journalist, Ranjeni Munusamy, also resurfaced in the commission, as Naidoo unravelled the shoddy relationship between her and General Solly Lazarus.

Naidoo talks about a journalist by the name of Ranjeni Munusamy who he was tasked by General Lazarus to go and assist her with the issues of her vehicle, he says he then called and met Ranjeni at the engen garage not far from his house.#StateCaptureInquiry — State Capture Commission (@StateCaptureCom) September 30, 2019

It appears that not only had Munusamy’s car been purchased by the Crime Intelligence’s purse, it was allegedly also maintained by it.

Naidoo tells the commission that after meeting up with Ranjeni Munusamy he then took her vehicle himself to the dealer (New World Motors) as there were issues with it, he says the vehicle was then repaired and the tyres were replaced.#StateCaptureInquiry — State Capture Commission (@StateCaptureCom) September 30, 2019

Details of Bheki Cele link to State Capture: Here’s what we know

The more shocking party of Naidoo’s testimony, at the moment, came when he implicated Cele in State Capture dealings. This is what we have heard so far:

Rumours were rife that when Cele was the MEC for Transport in KwaZulu-Natal, he allegedly awarded local businessman, Panganathan Marimuthu, tenders.

Marimuthu was a former police officer with a checkered past linked with drug trafficking.

General Lazarus was aware of the shoddy relationship between Cele and Marimuthu.

It may have cost General Lazarus a hefty amount of money to urge’s Cele’s availability for meetings with him and Marimuthu.

At this time, details around the alleged payments made to Cele have not been made very clear by Naidoo, as he has mentioned several times that he was not privy to most of the things discussed in these meetings.

Naidoo tells the commission that several meetings had took place between General Cele and Lazarus in Durban to which he was not privy.#StateCaptureInquiry — State Capture Commission (@StateCaptureCom) September 30, 2019

At the time of publishing this article, Cele had not issued a response to the damning allegations of his supposed checkered past.