Allegations that cash and improper gifts, including 20 impalas, flowed from alleged underworld figures to one of South Africa’s most senior police officers now shadow an abrupt exit that ends Shadrack Sibiya’s career in the service he once helped lead. The suspended deputy national police commissioner resigned from the South African Police Service (SAPS) while disciplinary proceedings against him were still under way, closing a chapter marked by litigation, reinstatement and repeated questions over his conduct.
The confirmation came on Monday, when SAPS announced that Sibiya’s employment had terminated with immediate effect from 12 October 2026. His legal representative tendered the resignation shortly after the disciplinary hearing had begun. “The disciplinary hearing against Lieutenant-General Sibiya sat this morning, during which his legal representative tendered his resignation immediately after the disciplinary proceedings had commenced,” the service said in a statement, as reported by the Mail & Guardian at https://mg.co.za/news/south-africa/2026-10-12-sibiya-quits-saps-during-disciplinary-hearing/.
Because the case was pending when he stepped down, the service will treat the exit as a dishonourable discharge. “As the former senior officer had an ongoing disciplinary case against him at the time of his resignation, his departure from the Service is therefore regarded as a dishonourable discharge,” the statement said. For an officer of lieutenant-general rank, the classification carries consequences for how a decades-long policing record is formally recorded.
The corruption allegations against Sibiya, now before the Madlanga commission, extend beyond gifts and cash. He is also accused of leaking confidential police information and of irregularly removing 121 case dockets from the Political Killings Task Team, claims that speak directly to the integrity of the institutions charged with protecting public resources and enforcing the law.
The resignation does not end his legal exposure. Sibiya was arrested on 21 September and faces five criminal charges in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court, including rape, human trafficking and the sexual grooming of a child. The state alleges that he raped an 18-year-old woman at a Sandton hotel and groomed a 16-year-old girl between May and August 2026. His bail application remains ongoing. He is due back in the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 13 October, for that application in the sexual offences case.
His departure closes a turbulent record that repeatedly tested the cost and durability of internal accountability mechanisms. Sibiya was dismissed in 2015 over his alleged role in the illegal rendition of Zimbabwean nationals. He challenged that dismissal, and the Labour Court subsequently ordered his reinstatement after finding the dismissal procedurally unfair, a ruling that returned him to the payroll of the service despite the findings that had led to his removal.
By contrast, his years outside national policing placed him in municipal oversight. In 2016, former Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba appointed him to lead the city’s Group Forensic and Investigation Services, the unit tasked with investigating corruption and misconduct within the municipality, putting him at the centre of efforts to police the misuse of public funds at local government level.
He returned to national policing in 2023 and was promoted to lieutenant-general, serving as deputy national commissioner for crime detection. That second stint ended in suspension in 2025, after KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi accused him of complicity with criminal networks, the accusation that set in motion the disciplinary process from which he has now withdrawn by resigning.
For the police service, the outcome resolves an employment matter at the cost of a formal disciplinary finding, while the criminal case in Randburg and the Madlanga commission inquiry continue to run their course. Whether the pending bail application and the commission’s findings will further reshape his legal position remains the open question as Tuesday’s court date approaches.