Suspended controversial Mpumalanga Police Commissioner Lieutenant-General Semakaleng Manamela is set to face a board of inquiry over misconduct next week.
Image: SAPS
Suspended controversial SA Police Service (SAPS) Mpumalanga Commissioner Lieutenant-General Semakaleng Manamela is set to face the board of inquiry established to probe the serious allegations against her next week.
Manamela is facing charges of misconduct relating to her alleged acceptance of gifts worth nearly R300,000 from “SAPS semi-official funds” and approval of unlawful promotions of police officers with pending corruption cases.
She has previously challenged the charges against her all the way to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) and the Constitutional Court, but was unsuccessful, with both superior courts dismissing her applications.
Manamela is still challenging the decision to subject her to a board of inquiry in court in a review application.
She approached the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, to challenge the SAPS’s continuation with the board of inquiry despite having successfully interdicted the process in October 2024.
Suspended National Police Commissioner General Fannie Masemola instituted the inquiry in March after Manamela lost her bid to stop it at the apex court.
According to information presented in court, the board was set to resume for five days in the week starting on Monday, May 4, but the police were stopped from doing so by threats of a contempt of court application against Masemola.
Following Manamela's unsuccessful attempt, the inquiry will resume for five days from next Monday, May 25.
Her term of office is set to expire at the end of June, which may result in the SAPS losing the opportunity to conduct the probe.
“The board of inquiry, which the SAPS seeks to convene, is a statutory board that is convened during the term of office in respect of who the inquiry is to be conducted.
“In other words, a board of inquiry may not only be convened for Manamela while she is still in office as provincial police commissioner for Mpumalanga,” Judge Anthony Millar ruled on Monday.
Manamela was initially charged in February 2023, after which she was also suspended. Her attempts to interdict the inquiry have so far been unsuccessful.
Her attempt to have Masemola held in contempt of court also failed on Monday.
“It seems to me to be self-evident that the interpretation contended by Manamela cannot be accepted as a sensible interpretation of the order. To do so would be to invert the hierarchy of our courts,” Judge Millar ruled.
The judge said Manamela took no steps to pursue her application to interdict the board of inquiry. “It is not open to her now to seek to interdict the board of inquiry from being convened because she had not asserted her rights to compel a response,” reads the judgment.
Judge Millar found that Manamela had failed to make out a case to interdict the inquiry and establish a right to personal legal representation in the inquiry.
Manamela's legal representatives, Kharametsane Attorneys, had not responded to questions by Tuesday afternoon.