Luxury-Clad but Shackled: Matlala Faces a Fiery Day in Front of MPs

A picture of contradictions

If South Africans love anything, it’s a moment that captures the country’s contradictions in one frame and on this day, Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala delivered exactly that.

Clad in a crisp white shirt with patterned cuffs, brown trousers, and a Burberry belt and shoes that screamed “CEO energy,” Matlala stepped into parliament’s ad hoc police committee hearing. But what truly froze photographers mid-click were the heavy shackles around his waist and ankles, a reminder that this was no ordinary witness but a man currently held at Kgosi Mampuru Correctional Centre on attempted murder charges.

It was a surreal image: a man draped in luxury yet bound by chains, walking into a room of MPs ready to take him apart piece by piece.

A reluctant witness meets an impatient Parliament

The committee sat inside the C Max facility an unusual setting that seemed to heighten the tension. As committee chair Soviet Lekganyane outlined the process, Matlala fussed with his sleeves, fixed his collar and rolled up his cuffs the body language of a man wishing he was anywhere else.

His discomfort made sense: he hadn’t even signed the statement MPs wanted to use. Two MK Party reps warned that relying on an unsigned affidavit was a recipe for loopholes. But ActionSA’s Dereleen James, tired of political delays, cut in sharply:

“Let’s proceed. The country wants answers.”

Even Julius Malema agreed, an alignment that doesn’t happen every day in Parliament.

By mid-morning, Matlala had taken the oath, confirming he was awaiting trial on attempted murder charges involving his former girlfriend. He admitted to a past conviction too: a 2001 housebreaking case in Pretoria.

The man behind the “Cat”

Matlala didn’t offer much emotion, his eyes barely lifted from the table. But he did paint pieces of his personal story: raised by a single mother in Mamelodi East, hustling with informal businesses after school, supporting a wife and nine children today.

When MPs joked about the nickname “Cat” nine children, nine lives he didn’t bite. The silence was loud.

But what followed was louder.

The statement he didn’t read and the questions he didn’t want

Barely 10 minutes into the session, Matlala gave up on pretending. He told MPs he only received the draft statement that morning and couldn’t “go too deep” into anything.

As the pages rustled, his irritation grew. He folded his arms, leaned back, and watched MPs bombard him with questions about:

• his business dealings

• links to police officials

• medical contracts

• political connections

• and the SIU investigation that flagged his name

He repeatedly refused to discuss any police-related contract work, citing ongoing investigations.

“I don’t want to incriminate myself,” he insisted, scratching his neck and tugging at his collar like the air was shrinking around him.

Malema tried to break it down for him, explaining what answering under oath means. Matlala pushed back gently he didn’t call it fear, he called it “concerns.”

A turning point and a political grenade

But then something shifted. As the hearing went on, the nerves evaporated. Maybe it was the rhythm of testimony. Maybe he realised the committee wasn’t backing down. Maybe he felt cornered.

Whatever it was, Matlala suddenly became more forthcoming.

And then came the moment that sent social media buzzing: he threw former police minister Bheki Cele under the bus, accusing him of lying.

X (formerly Twitter) users did not waste a second:

• “Cat is singing like he wants parole by lunchtime.”

• “Burberry belt, prison chains and now dragging Cele? This hearing has everything.”

• “South Africa really is a movie.”

What was missing and what it means

For all the drama, some things remain unclear:

• Why exactly is his name in the SIU probe?

• What was the true nature of his alleged contracts with SAPS?

• And why did his unsigned statement arrive only the morning of the hearing?

But one thing was impossible to ignore: the committee wanted answers, and Matlala, whether reluctantly or strategically gave them enough to keep this story burning.

A final look: Style versus shackles

The image of Matlala’s Burberry belt sitting above prison chains will linger long after the transcript is filed. It captured, in one shot, the surreal complexity of South African politics where wealth and criminal allegations, fashion and fear, public duty and private scandal often walk the same corridor.

And on this day, that corridor ran straight through C Max.

{Source: The Citizen}

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