Ramaphosa lifts Fannie Masemola's suspension, top cop back at work on Monday

National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola will be back at his desk on Monday, after President Cyril Ramaphosa lifted the precautionary suspension that kept him out of the job for six months.

The suspension, announced on April 23, followed Masemola’s appearance in the Pretoria Magistrates’ Court on charges of contravening the Public Finance Management Act in his capacity as the police service’s accounting officer. Ramaphosa said at the time that the seriousness of the charges and the need to keep public confidence in the police required it.

As Sunday World reported on 16 October, the charges were withdrawn before the suspension was lifted, and the two events are separate decisions by two separate institutions.

The National Director of Public Prosecutions, Advocate Andy Mothibi, called for all charges against Masemola to be withdrawn on September 15, saying the evidence gathered by the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption, a Case Assessment Panel report and an assessment by independent senior counsel left no reasonable prospects of a successful prosecution on the PFMA counts. The NPA said the decision was taken under Section 179(5)(c) of the Constitution, read with Section 22(2)(b) of the NPA Act, which allows the national director to intervene where the authority’s policy directives have not been complied with.

On September 22 the Pretoria Magistrates’ Court formally withdrew the charges, removing Masemola from the case alongside Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala and several senior police officials.

What the case was about

The charges flowed from a SAPS health and wellness services tender awarded to Medicare24 Tshwane District, a company the source material links to Matlala. The contract was advertised at R360-million and the state’s own figure for the value awarded and paid was R228-million. More than R50-million had allegedly been paid out before the contract was cancelled in May 2025, after an internal audit reportedly uncovered irregularities.

Masemola’s four counts were narrower than those faced by some co-accused. He was charged over his responsibility to oversee procurement, ensure financial controls were followed and act on irregularities, not with fraud or corruption.

Lieutenant-General Puleng Dimpane has been acting national police commissioner during the suspension.

Still before the courts

The withdrawal of the charges did not settle the matter politically. On September 29, Sunday World reported that National Coloured Congress leader and MP Fadiel Adams had gone to the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to have Mothibi’s decision reviewed and set aside, arguing it was not rationally connected to the information the prosecution authority had. That application does not reverse the withdrawal, and the court’s ruling on it is a separate legal question that has not yet been decided.

For the public, the practical effect is a return to the arrangement that existed before April. The national commissioner’s office carries the operational command of the SAPS, including the deployments, station-level resourcing and crime-fighting priorities that provincial and local policing depend on. Six months of an acting incumbent ends on Monday.