What the Lesufi reply says about JMPD corruption
Complaints of JMPD corruption outnumber those recorded against any other law enforcement agency in Gauteng, according to a written reply by Premier Panyaza Lesufi to questions tabled by the Democratic Alliance in the provincial legislature. The Johannesburg Metro Police Department accounted for 185 of the 456 complaints of fraud, corruption, extortion and theft recorded across four agencies between 2022 and 2026.
For motorists in Johannesburg, the practical reading is direct. The department they are most likely to meet at a roadblock is the one with the most recorded corruption complaints in the province, and it is the one that could not tell the Premier how many of its own officers face criminal charges.
The DA published the reply on Monday, 7 September 2026, after asking about corruption in the Gauteng Traffic Police, the JMPD, the Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department and the Tshwane Metro Police Department since 2022. Tshwane recorded 180 complaints, close behind Johannesburg.
The figure that has carried the coverage is a single-day one. Superintendent Elmarie de Beer of Internal Affairs at the JMPD said the department does not know how much money was involved in extortion and corruption by its officers, according to Newsday’s account of the reply. She said the highest amount taken by a JMPD official in a single day was R1.5 million in cash.
No officer has been publicly named in connection with that amount. None of the published accounts of the reply says whether anyone was charged, prosecuted or convicted over it, and the allegation has not been tested in court.
The R1.5 million figure has two published versions
The reply itself has not been posted publicly, and outlets working from it have reported two materially different things.
Newsday and Briefly News both describe the R1.5 million as taken by one JMPD official in a single day, which is also how the DA’s own statement opens. News24 read it differently, reporting that officers in the department were accused of taking a total of R1.5 million in bribes in one day, and that the reply notes “a sum total of R1.5 million in bribes was allegedly solicited” that day.
The DA statement is not internally consistent on the point either. Its opening line attributes the amount to a JMPD official. Later in the same statement it refers to an extraordinary R1.5 million allegedly taken by JMPD in a single day, without specifying one officer.
The distinction matters. One official collecting R1.5 million in cash in a day describes a single, extraordinary case. The same sum spread across a department in a day describes something routine and structural, which is closer to what the DA argues is happening. The reply has not been published in a form that settles it.
Michael Sun, the DA’s Gauteng spokesperson for community safety and a member of the provincial legislature, framed the amounts as evidence of scale rather than opportunism, saying in the party’s statement: “This is not petty corruption. This is organised extortion.”
Where the numbers stop
| Agency | Complaints 2022 to 2026 | Suspended or reassigned | Dismissed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Johannesburg Metro Police Department | 185 | 47 | 16 |
| Tshwane Metro Police Department | 180 | 28 | 17 |
| Gauteng Traffic Police | Not disclosed in published accounts | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| Ekurhuleni Metro Police Department | Not disclosed in published accounts | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
| All four agencies | 456 | Not disclosed | Not disclosed |
Across the four agencies, 175 officers have been criminally charged. The DA presents this as 38.3% of those implicated.
That percentage rests on the complaint count rather than a count of officers. Dividing 175 by 456 gives 38.4%, which matches the DA’s figure, meaning each of the 456 complaints has been treated as one implicated officer. A single complaint may involve more than one officer, and one officer may attract more than one complaint.
The gap in the reply compounds the problem. Because JMPD could not tell the Premier how many of its officers face criminal charges, it is not clear whether any Johannesburg cases are counted in the 175, while all 185 Johannesburg complaints sit in the denominator. The charge rate across Gauteng’s traffic and metro police is therefore not established by this reply in either direction.
Sun said the recorded totals should be read as a floor rather than a measure. “These figures are concerning because they represent only cases that were formally reported,” he said.
What has not happened
The DA has asked Lesufi to act, and set out what it says it would do differently. Those measures, listed in the party’s statement as mandatory body cameras, annual lifestyle audits, asset disclosures, an independent provincial anti-corruption unit, time-bound referrals of complaints to IPID or the SAPS, and real-time accountability dashboards, are framed as things the DA would introduce once in government rather than as proposals it can implement now.
The DA is the official opposition in Gauteng. Its statement is a political case built on figures the provincial government itself supplied, and the party’s characterisation of those figures is contested territory rather than an established finding.
No public response to the DA’s statement from the City of Johannesburg, the JMPD or the Office of the Premier had been reported by the time of publication.
Several things remain unresolved. The full reply has not been published, so the Gauteng Traffic Police and Ekurhuleni breakdowns are not on the public record. The total value of money involved in the 456 complaints is unknown, on JMPD Internal Affairs’ own account. And no disciplinary or criminal outcome has been disclosed for the R1.5 million matter specifically.
The provincial and national response to organised extortion has been running on a separate track, including the deployment Southafriworld reported on when soldiers were committed against crime syndicates in Gauteng and the Western Cape. Whether the metro police complaints in this reply are referred to IPID or the SAPS, and how many result in charges, is not stated in any of the published accounts.
