In a dramatic escalation of the ongoing turmoil within South Africa’s police leadership, suspended Mpumalanga police commissioner Lieutenant-General Daphney Semakaleng Manamela has leveled a series of explosive allegations against former Police Minister Bheki Cele. In a detailed affidavit submitted to the Civilian Secretariat for Police Service, Manamela accuses Cele of a sustained pattern of political interference, specifically targeting sensitive investigations into high-profile corruption, political assassinations, and controversial tender processes.
According to the 28-page document, which has been seen by this publication, the alleged interference was not subtle. Manamela claims that Cele, who served as police minister from 2018 until his reassignment after the May 2024 elections, repeatedly bypassed formal command structures to issue direct instructions that compromised ongoing operations.
“Minister Cele would call me at odd hours—sometimes past midnight—demanding that I halt certain arrest operations or ‘reassign’ investigative files to his preferred officers,” Manamela states in the affidavit. “When I refused, citing the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) independent mandate and basic police protocol, he would threaten my career. He told me, and I quote: ‘I will break you. You don’t know who you are dealing with.’”
The suspended general, who was herself placed on precautionary suspension last month pending a misconduct inquiry that she claims is retaliatory, provides three specific case examples.
The R103 Million Tender Web
The first involves a 2022 investigation into a R103 million personal protective equipment (PPE) tender awarded to a company with close ties to a senior ANC political figure in Mpumalanga. Manamela alleges that Cele personally phoned her on three occasions, demanding that she close the investigation because it was “embarrassing the government.” When her Hawks unit traced suspicious payments from the company to a bank account linked to a family member of Cele’s political ally, she says the pressure became unbearable.
“He said, ‘You are not the NPA. Your job is to arrest criminals, not to play politics.’ But the irony is that he was the one playing politics with a legitimate fraud probe,” she said through her legal representative.
The Pienaar Political Killings
The second, more chilling allegation relates to a string of unresolved political assassinations in the Pienaar area, near Mbombela, between 2020 and 2023. At least six local ward committee members and two business people were gunned down in what police intelligence believed was a turf war over lucrative municipal security tenders.
Manamela claims that when her team identified a suspect who was a known associate of a provincial cabinet member, Cele ordered her to hand over all case dockets to a newly formed “ministerial task team” that was never officially gazetted. When she refused, she says Cele told her: “This is above your rank. Some of these people are untouchable.”
Within weeks, her second-in-command was transferred, and key witnesses in the Pienaar case recanted their statements after allegedly being intimidated.
The ‘Ghost’ Forensic Files
The third instance, according to Manamela, involved an attempt to shield a senior police logistics official from arrest over a fraudulent fuel-supply contract worth R47 million. The official, a political appointee with no prior law enforcement background, had allegedly signed off on payments to a shell company owned by his brother-in-law.
Manamela says Cele invited her to his Cape Town office in early 2024 and offered her a “promotion to a national tasking position” if she would “let the matter be handled administratively” rather than criminally. She refused. Two weeks later, the forensic file went missing from a locked safe at the provincial headquarters. A junior analyst who had worked on the case was mysteriously promoted and transferred to Limpopo.
Retaliation and Suspension
Manamela argues that her current suspension—officially for “loss of confidence in her leadership” and “unauthorized media leaks”—is a direct consequence of her refusing to bow to Cele’s interference. She notes that the suspension came just days after she submitted a confidential whistle-blower report to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) detailing Cele’s conduct.
“I am being punished for doing my job,” she said during a press briefing held outside the Mbombela High Court, where she is seeking an urgent interdict to overturn her suspension. “If a general cannot protect her investigators from political meddling, then the South African Police Service is no longer a law enforcement agency—it is a political weapon.”
Cele’s Denial and Counterclaims
Reached for comment, Bheki Cele dismissed the allegations as “desperate fabrications” by a suspended official trying to save her own skin. Through his spokesperson, Cele stated: “General Manamela is facing a legitimate internal disciplinary process for gross insubordination and mismanagement. These false claims are a smokescreen. I have never, and would never, instruct any officer to shield a criminal. My record as a minister who fought corruption speaks for itself.”
He added that Manamela has the right to take her claims to IPID or the NPA, but that he is “confident no evidence exists because these events never happened.”
Political Fallout
The allegations have sent shockwaves through the police’s upper ranks and the African National Congress (ANC), which is already grappling with internal factional battles ahead of the 2026 local government elections. The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) has called for an urgent parliamentary inquiry, while the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) demanded that Cele be summoned to testify before the Joint Standing Committee on Police.
Legal experts note that if Manamela can produce phone records, witness testimony from other senior officers (some of whom have reportedly already approached IPID), or the missing forensic file, Cele could face criminal charges of obstruction of justice and defeating the ends of justice.
For now, Lieutenant-General Daphney Semakaleng Manamela remains suspended, awaiting a court date that she hopes will clear her name—and expose what she calls “the rot at the very top of policing in this country.”
Outside the Mbombela courthouse, a small group of police officers stood in silent support, holding a handwritten sign: “We stand with the General. No political prisoners.” Inside, the fight for the soul of South African policing has only just begun.
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