Africa: Could a New Agency Stop Crime Syndicates Infiltrating the Police?

Ahead of the Madlanga Commission’s recommendations, Parliament should carefully review South Africa’s capacity to investigate and prosecute serious crime.

For most of the post-apartheid period, there has been an ongoing debate in South Africa, sometimes extending to bitter political contestation, about how criminal justice agencies could better tackle serious crime. A key issue is how best to address state corruption, and whether to create a new body for the task.

Now, the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Criminality, Political Interference, and Corruption in the Criminal Justice System (Madlanga Commission) has introduced new questions about organised crime and its role in police corruption. A notable concern, reflected in the commission’s terms of reference, is the capture or infiltration of criminal justice agencies by crime syndicates.

In the debate about creating a new anti-corruption agency, a body established under Chapter 9 of the Constitution is widely seen in South Africa as the gold standard. Chapter 9 organisations are accountable to Parliament rather than the Executive, and enjoy greater independence.

Existing Chapter 9 institutions are generally recognised as a mixed bag, with perhaps only the Auditor-General and Electoral Commission of South Africa seen as especially effective. That suggests Chapter 9 status alone does not guarantee success.

Although there is widespread support for creating a Chapter 9 anti-corruption body, backers of the idea differ on whether it should be involved in crime investigation and prosecution.

In its August 2025 final report, the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council (NACAC), appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2022, recommended that a Chapter 9 agency – the Office of Public Integrity (OPI) – be established to ‘prevent, investigate, and remedy systemic corruption.’

The new agency would not be a criminal justice body but would instead absorb and take over the mandate of the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). The SIU prevents the theft of state funds and recovers misappropriated funds using civil rather than criminal legal instruments.

By contrast, a Private Members’ Bill introduced in Parliament by Democratic Alliance Member of Parliament Glynnis Breytenbach in 2024 proposes a new Chapter 9 institution with powers to investigate and prosecute crimes. The implication is that the new body would take over personnel from existing agencies, subject to appropriate selection criteria and screening. It would investigate not just ‘serious corruption’ but also ‘high-level organised crime.’

The SIU is South Africa’s most effective anti-corruption agency and would provide the OPI with a firm foundation. Absorbing the SIU would enable the agency to seamlessly become operational, whereas other models require a protracted period to do so. The NACAC model also avoids duplicating other bodies’ functions and does not risk weakening them by taking over their staff.

A shortcoming in the NACAC proposal is the absence of clearly defined accountability measures for politicians and government officials implicated in corruption. This needs to be addressed by excluding public servants who commit serious financial misconduct from further state employment.

The NACAC model needs to be tightened up, but overall it is more realistic than others. Former president Jacob Zuma’s arms deal trial – ongoing for more than 21 years – shows that elite corruption is notoriously difficult to prosecute.

The idea that a Chapter 9 corruption investigation and prosecution agency would deliver jail terms assumes it could secure convictions. Such a body would be equally likely to waste public money on many fruitless prosecutions.

Despite calls by Members of Parliament to establish a new Chapter 9 institution, progress has stalled pending the Madlanga Commission’s recommendations. Ramaphosa has said that the commission’s findings ‘will lay the basis for a fundamental reform of our criminal justice system.’

One question is how the Madlanga Commission will respond to a proposal from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GITOC) submitted in September. GITOC motivated for another new Chapter 9 agency focused on organised crime infiltration of the criminal justice system.

The proposal raises several questions. How will the recruitment of investigative and prosecutorial staff for the new body affect other agencies, notably the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks)? And how would the new agency secure access to intelligence support that would be critical to its success?

Another challenge facing any new institution is that success depends on having sufficient resources. A clearly defined mandate is vital, but so too are guarantees that resources will be provided to effectively back this mandate.

A new agency can easily be set up to fail. In the process of negotiating a new institution’s legislative mandate, it is likely – given the scale of South Africa’s corruption and organised crime problem – that Parliament will overburden it with responsibilities. Broad mandates inevitably lead to under-resourcing. Already, the Hawks, Independent Police Investigative Directorate and other bodies face significant capacity constraints.

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