How a former 'street kid' is key to South Africa's police corruption inquiry

How a former 'street kid' is key to South Africa's police corruption inquiry Matlala Whitethorn may be a significant figure, but he only entered the national spotlight three years ago when his name appeared in reports concerning alleged tender irregularities at a government hospital; he insisted he had no involvement in the tender. He informed legislators that he was raised for a time by a single mother, who he said "disappeared connected me". "I had to rise myself. I was really a thoroughfare kid," he told lawmakers. He was born in 1976, during South Africa's white‑minority rule, and grew up in a township east of Pretoria. After his mother’s death in 2002—she was terminally ill—Matlala learned that she had been sexually assaulted, an attack he attributed to her albinism and to myths that sexual contact with a woman with the condition could cure men of illness. Leaving school, he launched an informal hustle to make ends meet, which brought him into repeated contact with the law. In