Madlanga Commission reveals how implicated figures used security firms to wield immense power

Evidence before the Madlanga Commission illustrates how security companies have become shadow militia, used by criminals to access tenders and guns that they use to intimidate the opposition

Thando Nzimande is a Wits alumnus, a Future Voices scholar and researcher at Meari, a neuroscience researcher and economic and geopolitical commentator/analyst.

The Madlanga Commission has pulled back the curtain on a South Africa where the instruments of state power have been repurposed to serve private criminal interests, creating a shadow state that effectively houses multiple private militias boasting more guns and influence than the state police.

The prevalence of security company ownership among those implicated in the commission’s hearings is no accident. It is a direct and inevitable consequence of a system where public funds are looted to build parallel power structures, where the badge and the gun are commodities to be bought and sold and where the private security industry has become the vehicle through which criminal syndicates project force and maintain control.

The staggering figures laid bare by the commission illustrate the financial scale of this phenomenon. At the Tshwane Metro Police Department alone, 22 companies were granted a security tender that has seen approximately R2.9-billion paid out to date, with the commission scrutinising allegations of tender manipulation that ensured only a handful of companies remained on the payroll.

Among these, Gubis85 Solutions stands out as a particularly egregious example, receiving R59.13-million for ad hoc services between July 2024 and June 2025 on top of its standard monthly security services payment of R3.5-million. The commission heard testimony that the allocation of additional sites to Gubis85 was carried out by junior officials without proper authorisation, with 40 ad hoc sites assigned between January and February 2025 alone, each staffed by 24 security officers and supported by three patrol vehicles.

A Tshwane Metro chief later testified that she halted an irregular private security tender costing R800-million that had been approved by a deputy chief. This is not legitimate business; this is the systematic diversion of public resources to build private armies that operate beyond the reach of the law.

The question of why these specific people need to arm themselves is answered by the commission’s findings: it is to maintain control over lucrative tenders, to intimidate rivals and to operate with impunity.

The security company is not merely a business venture; it is a franchise of power, a source of revenue, and crucially, a private militia that can be deployed at will.