Cat Matlala COLLAPSES As DA & ActionSA MPs DESTROY His R500k Bheki Cele Bribery Defense

November 28, 2025 5 min read

Cat Matlala Bheki Cele Bribery: R500k Scandal Exposed

On 27 November 2024, businessman Cat Matlala faced one of the most brutal parliamentary grillings in recent South African history. Democratic Alliance MP Glynnis Breytenbach and ActionSA MP Dereleen James systematically dismantled his defense over allegations of systematic corruption within the South African Police Service. At the center of the storm: a five hundred thousand rand cash payment to former Police Minister Bheki Cele that Matlala admitted to making, but incredibly claimed was “not corruption.”

WATCH FULL VIDEO ANALYSIS HERE:

The Cat Matlala Bheki Cele Bribery Admission That Changed Everything

The hearing began with what should have been a simple denial. Instead, it became a confession. When questioned by Glynnis Breytenbach about the Cat Matlala Bheki Cele bribery payment, Matlala admitted that after receiving help from a senior police official named Cleary to make his legal problems disappear, he paid five hundred thousand rands in cash. “He helped me, then he asked for money, so I gave him five hundred thousand rands,” Matlala testified under oath. “Yes, that’s true. In return for that assistance, yes, that’s true.” This admission sent shockwaves through the committee room. Here was a businessman openly describing a textbook case of bribery while simultaneously claiming he had done nothing wrong.

What happened next revealed the twisted logic that allows corruption to flourish in South Africa. When Breytenbach asked Matlala what he thought this transaction was, he responded that it was “returning a favour.” Not a bribe. Not corruption. Just a favour between business associates. “It’s returning a favour, yes,” Matlala insisted. “And you don’t think that’s corrupt?” Breytenbach asked. “No,” he replied. This exchange exposed a fundamental problem in South African business culture: the normalization of corruption through euphemistic language. Matlala had convinced himself that paying a police official to interfere with investigations was somehow legitimate business practice.

Former National Prosecuting Authority prosecutor Glynnis Breytenbach was not buying Matlala’s excuses. She methodically explained the legal reality of his situation using language any South African could understand. “You know that there are two parties involved in corruption,” Breytenbach stated. “There’s a corruptor and a corruptee. I’m telling you that in my view, in this situation, you’re the corruptor.” She then asked the obvious question: if Matlala was truly being extorted, why didn’t he report it to the police? His answer revealed everything: “Report him to who? To the police? The same police that are harassing me?” But Breytenbach demolished this excuse immediately. “There are many police. I’m sure the entire police force wasn’t harassing you. There is a national commissioner.” The truth was clear. Matlala hadn’t reported the alleged extortion because it wasn’t extortion. It was a transaction. A business arrangement. The cost of doing business when your business model depends on capturing the state.

Breytenbach then exposed another layer of Matlala’s deception: his use of corporate language to disguise criminal activity. She asked him directly: “So you paid to make your problems go away?” “Of course, yeah,” Matlala responded without hesitation. “I’m sad to tell you, Mister Matlala, that is corruption,” Breytenbach declared. “You call these payments facilitation fees. A euphemism for corruption.” This exchange revealed how corruption operates in plain sight in South Africa. Businessmen don’t call their bribes “bribes.” They use sanitized terms like “facilitation fees,” “consultancy payments,” or “success fees.” But a bribe by any other name is still a bribe, and the Cat Matlala Bheki Cele bribery case proved it.

If the five hundred thousand rand payment to Cleary was shocking, what ActionSA MP Dereleen James revealed next was absolutely explosive. She had evidence suggesting that the Cat Matlala Bheki Cele bribery case was just the tip of a massive iceberg of corruption. James began by asking a simple question: “Besides the five hundred thousand that you bribe former minister Bheki Cele, have you ever given money, gifts, or financial assistance to any senior SAPS members?” Matlala’s answer was telling: “Not that I can think of.” Not a clean “no.” Not an absolute denial. But “not that I can think of” – the answer of a man who has made so many corrupt payments that he genuinely cannot remember them all.

What came next was so bizarre that it would be unbelievable if it wasn’t on the parliamentary record. James asked: “Have you ever personally paid for cosmetic procedures, namely a BBL – a Brazilian butt lift – for a senior member within the South African Police Service?” Let that sink in. A Member of Parliament had to ask, under oath, whether a businessman with SAPS contracts had paid for plastic surgery for a senior police official. This is where the Cat Matlala Bheki Cele bribery scandal had led South Africa: to a place where such questions were not only necessary but credible. Matlala denied this allegation, but James had more ammunition. She had recordings.