NPA drops Medicare24 charges against Fannie Masemola, clearing way for police chief's return

The National Prosecuting Authority has withdrawn all charges against General Fannie Masemola, the suspended national police commissioner, clearing the way for his formal reinstatement as South Africa’s top cop.

As SABC News reported on 22 September 2026, the NPA head, Advocate Andy Mothibi, reviewed the case and concluded there were no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution on the charges Masemola faced under the Public Finance Management Act.

The charges arose from the R228-million SAPS Medicare24 tender, a contract in which Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala is implicated. Masemola was accused of failing to secure proper oversight of the procurement in line with the PFMA. He was arrested and charged earlier this year, and President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended him from office in the aftermath.

With the charges now withdrawn, the magistrate’s court process against him has fallen away, and his return to the commissioner’s office is a matter of formality rather than contest.

For ordinary South Africans, the practical effect is narrow but real. The SAPS national commissioner is the accounting officer for the police service and the person who answers for its budget, its procurement and its discipline. A suspended commissioner means a service running under an acting arrangement, and procurement decisions worth hundreds of millions of rand sit inside that uncertainty. The Medicare24 contract is one of the largest single tender matters to touch the SAPS leadership in recent years, and the criminal case against the man at the top of the service has now ended without a trial.

The withdrawal is not a finding of innocence. It is a prosecutorial decision that the evidence on the PFMA charges would not carry a conviction. The NPA has not said the underlying procurement was sound, and it has not said the tender itself is beyond scrutiny. Those are separate questions, and the record on them remains open.

The decision also raises a question the NPA has answered only in part. Masemola was charged, arrested and suspended on the strength of a case the state itself brought. The review that ended it was conducted internally by the NPA’s own head. Whether the original decision to prosecute was sound, and what that says about how the state handles high-profile procurement matters, is a question the NPA has not addressed in the material it has released.

What is clear is that the case against Masemola is over, and that the police service will shortly have a permanent commissioner again. For a service that has spent most of this year without one, that is a change with consequences for command, for discipline and for the tender decisions that come across the commissioner’s desk.

The Enquirer has not been able to establish whether the NPA intends to pursue any other person in connection with the Medicare24 tender. No date has been given for Masemola’s formal reinstatement.

Source: SABC News, Medicare24 tender corruption charges dropped against General Fannie Masemola