PiE DIGITAL crew satirical take from the Madlanga Commission, where medicine works in mysterious ways…
There is a special branch of medicine practised nowhere in the world except, apparently, in the file of Suliman Carrim, businessman, ANC member, and now — if whistleblowers are to be believed — the first man in recorded history to be simultaneously bedridden in one province and enjoying a leisurely lunch, with entourage, in another.
For months, the Madlanga Commission has been told, in increasingly detailed medical notes, that Mr Carrim cannot possibly appear to answer questions about the millions of rand moving through companies linked to him and his associate Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala. A heart scare at a gym. A collapse. A confinement to bed. Each instalment more serious than the last, each one arriving, with impeccable timing, just before he was due to take the stand.
A Recovery Nobody Ordered
On Wednesday, evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson told commissioners that not one but two independent whistleblowers, since corroborated by eyewitnesses, place Mr Carrim at a Western Cape shopping centre — entourage in tow — doing what sick men confined to bed apparently now do: a spot of shopping at Woolworths, followed by a late lunch. A third account has him at a social gathering. A fourth allegedly puts him in the North West. It is, by any reading, an extraordinarily active convalescence.
His lawyer, Advocate Kameel Premhid, has said he only learned of the allegations on the morning they were raised in open commission — which, to be fair, does sound like an uncomfortable way to find out your client may have upgraded from a hospital gown to a Woolworths trolley.
The Commission Reaches for the Receipts
Understandably unmoved by the plot twist, the commission is now moving to subpoena CCTV footage from the shopping centre, and to subpoena Mr Carrim’s doctors and the medical institution that has been treating him, to establish precisely which dates he was, in fact, medically incapacitated. Chaskalson did not mince words: the commission is concerned Mr Carrim has been “taking liberties” with it — a phrase that may go down as the politest possible way of accusing a witness of running rings around a judicial inquiry.
One does have to admire the ambition of it all. Most people asked to explain an unexplained absence produce, at most, a doctor’s note and an apologetic email. Mr Carrim, if the whistleblowers are right, produced a full itinerary.
What Friday Might Bring — A Little Speculation
The matter has been stood down until Friday, when the submissions made today will be considered together. What follows is speculation, not reporting — but it is not hard to sketch the shape of it.
Expect Mr Premhid, true to form, to press his already-flagged application for a further postponement, alongside a request that any reckoning with the whistleblower claims happen in camera — out of the cameras’ reach, which would be a first for this particular saga. Expect the commission, for its part, to be considerably less indulgent than it has been up to now; having already floated the idea of an independent medical assessment and warned of possible prosecution under the Commissions Act for a witness who hinders proceedings, patience appears to be the one resource running lower than Mr Carrim’s alleged appetite. And expect the CCTV footage — once it arrives — to do more to settle this than any medical certificate has managed so far.
If the footage does show what the whistleblowers say it shows, the consequences on the table are no longer just reputational. A commission that has already raised the prospect of prosecution for hindering its work now has, potentially, video evidence to go with the accusation — and a paper trail of medical notes to compare it against, appointment by appointment, hospital admission by hospital admission.
The Only Certainty
Whatever Friday brings, one thing is already clear: nothing focuses a commission of inquiry quite like the suspicion that its most elusive witness has been better at lunch reservations than at keeping medical confinement. Get well soon, Mr Carrim — wherever, and whenever, that turns out to have been necessary.
This piece is satire and commentary based on submissions made at the Madlanga Commission of Inquiry on 15 July 2026, as reported by EWN, Sowetan, The Witness, IOL and SABC News. Allegations against Mr Carrim referenced here remain unproven and subject to the commission’s ongoing process.
