MADLANGA COMMISSION: ‘Cele shrugged off critical warning’ — Joe Ferrari talks taxi killings and a cartel

Three months before there was an attempt on his life, taxi boss Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni sent a message to the police minister at the time, Bheki Cele, warning about a “cartel” causing havoc in the taxi industry.Sibanyoni testified about this at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on Friday, 28 August 2026.He added that he had warned Cele that senior South African Police Service (SAPS) officers were involved in taxi industry violence, but said Cele had asked what he was expected to do about this.MADLANGA COMMISSION | Joe "Ferrari" Sibanyoni says he and the late taxi boss Jothan "King Mswazi" Msibi had agreed to retire at the age of 60. However, he says Msibi later told him, "we die in the business", a remark he interpreted as a threat. pic.twitter.com/jItdHJsAHw— SABC News (@SABCNews) August 28, 2026 It was Sibanyoni’s first time testifying before the commission.He spoke confidently, at times passionately, and repeatedly distanced himself from any notion that he was a crime boss as some have alleged.Sibanyoni, meanwhile, is facing charges in an extortion case involving more than R2-million and a Mpumalanga businessman who was allegedly targeted.‘They call me Ferrari’During his testimony, Sibanyoni went into granular detail about his background, his confirmed and denied associations with various individuals previously named at the commission, and the volatile taxi industry, shedding some light on notorious aspects of it.He also explained the genesis of his nickname – “Ferrari.”“The nickname arose originally from my lifestyle and personality over many years,” Sibanyoni said.“It is a social nickname. It carries no criminal connotation whatsoever.”Sibanyoni on Friday told the Madlanga Commission he was also sometimes referred to as “godfather”, but insisted it was a social term and form of respect.He said he had been in business linked to the taxi industry, property and community development for 42 years.Web of charactersNhlanhla Mkhwanazi – the KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner who in 2025 first raised the alarm about a cartel, later identified as the Big Five, that he alleged had infiltrated the state. His accusations sparked the creation of the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry.Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni – Taxi boss accused of extortion. He said that in 2022 he messaged the police minister at the time, Bheki Cele, about violent taxi industry ructions. Three months after that, there was an attempt on Sibanyoni’s life.Bheki Cele – Former police minister, who has admitted that he knows Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala and had twice stayed at his house.Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala – Now faces various accusations, including being a member of the Big Five, and he has been charged with crimes including attempted murder. It is alleged he was involved in the 2022 attempted assassination of Sibanyoni.Jothan Msibi – A taxi boss who allegedly headed the Big Five cartel before his 2024 death. Sibanyoni believes Msibi was behind an earlier attempt on his life in 2006.Among the titles he held were president of the South African Local and Long Distance Taxi and Bus Organisation, and the founder of the Joe Sibanyoni Foundation.During one of the several times Sibanyoni insisted he was a law-abiding citizen, he said: “I have at all times endeavoured to conduct my affairs in accordance with the law.”Two assassination attempts, ‘17 other crimes’There had been attempts on his life in 2006 and 2022, which Sibanyoni said were linked to the minibus taxi industry.He alleged that fellow taxi boss Jothan Msibi was behind the 2006 attempt.This fits the narrative of South Africa’s unprecedented law enforcement scandal, because several police officers identified Msibi as heading a cartel, known as the Big Five and also the Firm or the Farm, which allegedly infiltrated South Africa’s criminal justice system, politics and private security.Sibanyoni testified that Msibi’s farm, north of Tshwane, was the “operational and political command centre of an organisation that wielded power far beyond the boundaries of the minibus taxi industry”.That power, according to Sibanyoni, extended deep into the state.Jothan Zanemvula Msibi. (Photo: Expand&Explore Taxi Media / Facebook) As for the 2022 attempt on Sibanyoni’s life, organised crime accused Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala is facing various criminal charges, including for allegedly orchestrating Sibanyoni’s attempted murder.Matlala had provided security to Msibi.Of the 2022 attempt, Sibanyoni told the Madlanga Commission on Friday: “Two men were deployed to kill me with weapons that had been used in 17 other crimes.”‘Cops complicit in criminal networks’Testifying on Friday before the commission, Sibanyoni said that shortly before the 2022 assassination attempt, he was “reporting” to Cele.Sibanyoni said he alerted Cele to “criminal networks operating within the taxi industry, including the complicity of very senior SAPS officials in those networks”.According to Sibanyoni, he sought Cele’s attention. Former police minister Bheki Cele. (Photo: Brenton Geach / Gallo Images) Sibanyoni explained that on 5 May 2022, about three months before the second attempt on his life, he sent a WhatsApp to Cele “voluntarily, at obvious personal risk”.The WhatsApp said, in part:“The Taxi Industry is on the verge of catastrophic disaster if left unattended even now during Covid 19 – these current Killings of Gauteng and KZN Taxi Operators which I personally know of […]“As I send you this message Minister, be aware that the service delivery around greater Tshwane and surroundings is highly disturbed by the same cartel which I have solid facts on […] One of the very disturbing facts is that very Senior SAPS officials are in this Cabal.”Joe ‘Ferrari’ Sibayoni said he sent this WhatsApp message to then police minister Bheki Cele on 5 May 2022. (Image: Madlanga Commission of Inquiry) Cele ‘shrugged off’ critical intelligenceSibanyoni said Msibi had headed “the cartel” he referred to in his WhatsApp to Cele, which suggests Sibanyoni was referring to the Big Five or The Farm.According to Sibanyoni’s testimony, Cele had responded to his May 2022 WhatsApp message by phoning, asking rhetorically what he was supposed to do when people in the taxi industry kill each other.“His response was not to convene an urgent meeting […] not to initiate any inquiry. […] It was in effect a shrug,” Sibanyoni said.Sibanyoni described this as a “significant failure of political leadership in the face of organised crime intelligence”.Three months after that message to Cele, Sibanyoni was shot twice.Vusimuzi ‘Cat’ Matlala appears in the Johannesburg High Court for a trial on 4 August 2026. Matlala is accused of orchestrating three failed assassination attempts targeting his former girlfriend, Tebogo Thobejane, businessman Joe Sibanyoni, and music producer Seunkie Mokubung, popularly known as DJ Vettys. (Photo: Gallo Images / OJ Koloti) This is among the incidents for which Matlala now faces criminal charges. (It previously emerged Cele had twice stayed at Matlala’s home – this was years after the 2022 Sibanyoni murder attempt.)Sibanyoni then approached the transport minister at the time, Sindisiwe Chikunga, who Sibanyoni said, unlike Cele, had “engaged” with the information he provided.“Most significantly, and most constitutionally troubling, the minister disclosed that she was aware that certain officials within the Department of Transport had divided allegiances and that some of those officials answered not to the Department, but to The Farm,” Sibanyoni alleged.Meeting MkhwanaziHe said that after Msibi’s 2024 death, KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi arranged to meet him around April that year. (Mkhwanazi went public last year, warning about the cartel – the Big Five – that had allegedly infiltrated the state.)“The meeting took place during a period of significant instability following Mr Msibi’s death,” Sibanyoni said.“A period in which the taxi industry faced renewed violence and a dangerous vacuum of leadership.”Sibanyoni said that in his capacity as a senior police officer, Mkhwanazi had understood “the significance of the post-Msibi environment”.KwaZulu-Natal Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on 18 March 2026 at the parliamentary ad hoc committee investigating the same accusations that the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry is looking into. (Photo: Gallo Images / Brenton Geach) According to Sibanyoni, he and Mkhwanazi had discussed the threat that izinkabi – a term that commonly refers to contract killers, but that can also refer to guards – posed to the taxi industry.High-calibre weapons and state agenciesEarlier, Sibanyoni testified at length about “the violence that characterises” the taxi industry.He said izinkabi were often recruited from KwaZulu-Natal.They were paid large sums of money to eliminate taxi operators.The re-emergence of Shaun AbrahamsFormer National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams is among those who legally represented taxi boss and extortion accused Joe Sibanyoni when he appeared as a witness before the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry. Former president Jacob Zuma, under whose administration State Capture thrived, appointed Abrahams as South Africa’s prosecutions boss in 2015. Three years later, a South African government statement said that Judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga had “said the appointment of Abrahams was invalid because the removal of his predecessor, Mxolisi Nxasana, was also constitutionally invalid due to the fact that former President Jacob Zuma ‘bought’ him out of office”. Madlanga now chairs the Madlanga Commission.Sibanyoni testified that the Shongwe Commission of Inquiry, which had investigated taxi violence in Gauteng, had found that “of those killed in taxi-related violence in Gauteng, 100% were shot with high-calibre rifles as well as small firearms”.He added: “Some of those high-calibre weapons were of the kind issued to state agencies such as the South African National Defence Force and the South African Police Service.”‘I have walked with God’Sibanyoni also made a point of testifying about himself on Friday.A section of his statement to the Madlanga Commission was headed: “The Man Before This Commission: Faith, Humanity, and Personal Identity.”Sibanyoni read from it, saying he wanted to “place on record who I am as a human being” as he was not simply a name in a report.“I am a man of deep and abiding Christian faith. I have walked with God throughout my adult life, and my faith has been the bedrock of my endurance through circumstances of extraordinary personal danger and institutional failure,” he said.“I do not regard my survival of two assassinations as mere fortune. I regard it as providence.” DMWhat next?Joe “Ferrari” Sibanyoni is expected back in the witness stand at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 21 September 2021. Meanwhile, more witnesses are expected to testify before then. The commission aims to wrap up its hearings by early October 2026. It will then complete a report on the hearings and present it to President Cyril Ramaphosa.