The name of controversial businessman Vusimusi “Cat” Matlala has haunted the proceedings of South Africa’s major inquiry into alleged police corruption.

The 49-year-old has been accused of supplying generous gifts – including 20 impalas, the weight-loss drug Ozempic and personal loans – to help him buy influence and get police contracts.

In police custody for more than a year in connection with a separate case, Matlala was due to provide his side of the story before retired Constitutional Court judge Mbuyiseli Madlanga and his panel on Wednesday. But after appearing before the commissioners in person for two hours, it was agreed that he would start his testimony in earnest in September.

The revelations at the Madlanga Commission, in progress for 10 months, have gripped South Africans and they are eager to hear how Matlala responds.

Dressed in a Fendi shirt and Gucci glasses, Matlala did give evidence at a parallel corruption inquiry in parliament last November.

He said he did not know senior police officers and politicians personally and denied corruption allegations though he admitted to having made donations for activities related to the African National Congress (ANC), the main party in the coalition government.

But he has not yet been asked to address the wider allegations made at the Madlanga Commission or the accusation that he was part of a drug trafficking cartel, allegedly known as the Big Five.

Matlala may now be a central figure, but he only came to public prominence three years ago when his name was mentioned in news reports around alleged tender irregularities at a state hospital – though he said he had nothing to do with the tender.

What little is known about his early life is based on what he told parliament last year.

He was born in 1976, when South Africa was still run by a white-minority government, and grew up in a township east of the capital, Pretoria.

He told lawmakers that he was for a time raised by a single mother, who he said then “disappeared on me”.

“I had to raise myself. I was actually a street kid,” he told lawmakers.

He eventually reunited with his mother in 2002, when she was terminally ill.

After she died, Matlala learned that she had been sexually assaulted, which he said was because of her albinism. Myths surround the condition include people believing that having sex with a woman with the condition would cure the men of illness.

After leaving school, he said he started an informal business to make ends meet, which led to various brushes with the law.

In 2001, he was convicted and served time in prison for the possession of stolen goods.

Over the years, he would be arrested for a string of crimes, including house robberies, a cash-in-transit heist and assault. He denied involvement in them all and was either acquitted or had the charges withdrawn against him.

He told the parliamentary committee that his nickname “Cat” was not, as some had suggested, down to his “nine lives” and ability to survive trouble, but because of his large family – he has nine children with his wife.

But things caught up with him in May 2025 when he was arrested and charged with attempted murder, which he denies. His wife is accused of the same crime and also denies the charge. Unlike her husband, she has been granted bail.

He was later charged with corruption over allegations in relation to providing health services to the police – and last month pleaded guilty as part of a deal with the prosecution but has since withdrawn the plea as the agreement has fallen apart.

He told the parliamentary inquiry last year that he turned his life around in 2017, when he registered his first formal business to provide security services.

Matlala said he later expanded his services into healthcare, and this led to him scoring lucrative contracts, first with a hospital and then the police, even though, as he admitted to lawmakers, he had no track record providing healthcare services.

But since last September, as witnesses gave evidence to the Madlanga Commission, allegations that Matlala had a close and corrupt relationship with senior police officers emerged in the public domain.

This included allegations that the now-suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu was indirectly receiving financial campaign money from Matlala to fund his “political endeavours”. Mchunu denied these accusations.

Matlala has also been accused of having dealings with Mchunu’s predecessor Bheki Cele.

Matlala told parliament’s inquiry he had paid Cele a 500,000 rand ($31,000; £23,000) “facilitation fee”, which the latter had demanded after police returned firearms seized from Matlala.

The businessman alleged that Cele also made other requests, including asking for help to purchase a home and pay for his son’s studies, to which Matlala refused to accede.

Cele admitted to MPs that he had known Matlala for a couple of months and had stayed at his rented penthouse in Pretoria on two occasions but denied receiving money from Matlala.

Matlala’s relationship with suspended deputy police chief Maj-Gen Shadrack Sibiya has also come under examination.

Both Matlala and Sibiya denied having a close relationship, insisting their dealings were strictly professional.

But testimony given at the Madlanga Commission painted a different picture.

It was alleged that Sibiya had received 20 impalas from Matlala around the same time Matlala was awarded the police contract. Sibiya denied this, saying he would never “receive anything from a service provider”.

A witness also alleged that Matlala had bragged about his “close connections with very senior police officials”, including Sibiya, following his arrest in May last year.

Matlala’s alleged relationship with other senior police officers have also been brought up at the Madlanga Commission.

Brig Rachel Matjeng, who oversaw the controversial police contract awarded to Matlala, told the commission she had had an on-off romantic relationship with the businessman that included lavish romantic presents – among them shots of Ozempic.

Another senior officer, the head of the police’s organised crime unit Maj-Gen Richard Shibiri, admitted to receiving a “personal loan” of $4,000 from Matlala which he repaid.

Shibiri, who oversaw anti-gang, narcotics, illegal mining investigations among others in his role, said the money was for repairs to his son’s car. He denied having a close friendship with Matlala, despite speaking to him often and advising him on personal matters.

“At no stage was I aware that he was a member of any cartel or that he was a subject of any criminal investigation,” he said.

Shibiri and Matjeng have since been fired from the police force.

Matlala’s name was also mentioned in relation to an alleged scandal in Ekurhuleni, a local government area just east of Johannesburg.

It was alleged that while Julius Mkhwanazi was Ekurhuleni’s acting police chief, he arranged for blue lights and sirens to be fitted on Matlala’s personal vehicles.

Mkhwanazi, who has since been suspended, denied the allegations but did admit to receiving money from Matlala, describing him as a “blood brother” during his appearance at the Madlanga Commission.

The startling revelations that have emerged since September, when the Madlanga Commission began, have left people wondering how such things were allowed to happen.

Many South Africans, anxious to understand the mechanics of the alleged corruption, hope that come 1 September Matlala may hold the answers.

Go to BBCAfrica.com, external for more news from the African continent.

Follow us on Twitter @BBCAfrica, external, on Facebook at BBC Africa, external or on Instagram at bbcafrica, external