WATCH | ‘I thought it was fake news’: KZN DPP on Task Team axing

Elaine Harrison

Pretoria – KwaZulu-Natal’s Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Elaine Harrison, told the Madlanga Commission she only learned on social media that Police Minister Senzo Mchunu had ordered the disbandment of the province’s Political Killings Task Team (PKTT).

She initially dismissed the reports as fake news, only to later be informed by colleagues that the task team had been told to halt new work.

“News of the disbanding emerged at a time when all the work that had been put in was clearly bearing fruit, and the coordination was producing the desired results.

“There was a bit of frustration at this time because there had been a lot of work that had gone into this from the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority ] side in the province towards the work of the task team, and because the information we had about the disbandment came from social media, not General Mkhwanazi. He said nothing about it in his letter.”

Harrison criticised the lack of formal communication from both KZN police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi and the SAPS head office.

Mkhwanazi later sent her a letter saying 121 case dockets were moved to Pretoria but did not address the team’s closure. Harrison said this caused months of delays, loss of coordination, and reduced effectiveness of the PKTT.

She rejected Mchunu’s assertion that political killings ended in 1994, noting there were still such cases as recently as 2019.

Harrison said she would have opposed the task team’s disbandment because it was showing positive results before being disrupted.

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