AGE OF ACCOUNTABILITY: How Feroz Khan tried to circumvent Madlanga Commission and shot himself in the foot

The latest evidence that EFF leader Julius Malema does not just benefit from alleged criminals but uses his political power to actively aid them makes the mountain he has to climb these local elections much steeper. His protestations that his relationship with deputy SAPS Crime Intelligence head Major-General Feroz Khan was simply that of old friends might fall on the deaf ears of increasingly cynical voters.

While Malema and the EFF burst onto the political scene in the 2014 elections with an agenda of radical change, that message has become increasingly obscured by the corruption claims against him.

The latest evidence , contained in an affidavit from the Madlanga Commission, that he used his power in Parliament to actively help a senior official in the SAPS commit corrupt acts may be impossible to explain away.

What innocent explanation can there be for causing then EFF MP Mbuyiseni Ndlozi to ask a question deliberately designed to lead to the removal of the then inspector-general of intelligence, Setlhomamaru Dintwe?

Or for Malema to request from Khan, and then receive, the details of the person who lodged criminal charges in the VBS scandal?

While Malema has not yet responded publicly and personally to these latest developments, the narrative may be just beginning. Khan is due to testify at the commission in three weeks.

If that goes ahead the pressure on Malema will grow. Khan may find it impossible to provide explanations for this communication.

The greatest victory he ever scored was being able to demand he be treated to a different standard from the way he treats everyone else. In a worst-case scenario the commission’s investigators might even be able to get access to Malema’s phones. Or he may even have to testify himself.

And while certain EFF leaders have claimed on social media that there is nothing wrong with Malema being in communication with a senior police officer, how is it that this same officer was also actively plotting to use his power as a police officer to weaken a competitor of the cigarette smuggler who was funding Malema?

The same people who claim there could be an innocent explanation for all this will also not accept that there could be any kind of innocent explanation from President Cyril Ramaphosa for Phala Phala.

While Malema has undoubted political gifts, the greatest victory he ever scored was being able to demand he be treated to a different standard from the way he treats everyone else.

In the moments after the Constitutional Court ruling against Parliament on Phala Phala he claimed, with a straight face, that Ramaphosa was now facing the equivalent of criminal charges and thus should stand down.

If Geordin Hill-Lewis were to be found to have been in communication with a police officer about individuals or companies, Malema would be among the first to demand that he step down.

This hypocrisy has been able to lubricate his way through the evidence that he clearly benefited from the looting of VBS Bank, the fact he influences tenders in metros and has been profiting from politics for many years.

The EFF’s main problem, that it is totally reliant on Malema and his personality, has become even more entrenched. While it is difficult to know why individual voters make the decisions they do, this behaviour must have had an impact on many people who might have voted for him. The 2024 elections showed the EFF had lost momentum, as its share of the vote fell from 10.8% to 9.5%.

At the time it was difficult to know whether people seeking radical change had left the EFF in favour of the uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party. In MK’s heartland of KwaZulu-Natal, the EFF won just 2.26% in 2024, compared with 9.71% in 2019, suggesting this might have been the case. This means Malema’s task now is to win those people back.

This will be harder now than it was in the past, not just because there are more players in our politics, but because he does not appear to have the human resources he began the EFF with.

Both Ndlozi and Floyd Shivambu have left the party. And while there is a deputy leader in Godrich Gardee, he has not assumed a very public posture. This means that the EFF’s main problem, that it is totally reliant on Malema and his personality, has become even more entrenched.

His attempt to make a martyr of himself after being convicted of firing a semi-automatic gun above a crowd of people suggests this will not change. And any interview with any curious interviewer will surely end up concentrating on his relationship with Khan and these claims against him.

It is astonishing how important one week in 2023 has now become so important to the position in which Malema finds himself now.

In July that year the EFF hosted a gala dinner as part of its 10th anniversary celebrations. Khan attended , the first public sign of the relationship between him and Malema. If he had not gone to that dinner very few people would have known that they had some kind of connection. It is also unthinkable to imagin…