SEMAKALENG MANAMELA Whistle-blower opens case against two top cops
MIDDELBURG - A Limpopo-based journalist, Riot Hlatshwayo, who is also the owner of Rio-Jab Media, has opened a criminal case (CAS366/01/2024) of corruption and money laundering against Mpumalanga’s top cop, the provincial police commissioner (PC), Lieutenant General Semakaleng Manamela, and the Middelburg Police Station commander, Brigadier Thandi Jiyane.
“It is my duty to report any criminal activity in terms of Section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 204 of Act 12 of 2004,” Hlatshwayo said in his affidavit to the police. “[It] places the duty to report as a whistleblower any criminal activity to the police or the DPCI [Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation] for further investigation.”
Hlatshwayo based his allegations against Manamela and Jiyane on a voice recording he discovered in September 2022, which at the time went viral on social media. The conversation was allegedly between Jiyane and a police officer working in the finance department of the Middelburg Police Station. In it, it was mentioned that an amount of R230 000 had been deposited into an account for the benefit of the PC.
In the recording, which Lowvelder had transcribed, one person said: “I have sent it, and Stocks has sent it to me, but he sent me R230 grand.”
The same person said: “... but he deposited the money in the person of the provincial commissioner, a private person.”
This voice, Hlatshwayo claims, is Jiyane’s. When Lowvelder approached Jiyane to confirm if it was indeed her voice, she said she could not comment. She referred the paper to the national police spokesperson, Brigadier Athlenda Mathe.
During a 45-minute conversation with Lowvelder, Jiyane did, however, say that “the recording was made illegally”.
When asked if she could confirm or deny that it is her voice on the recording, she replied in writing: “Whether it’s me or not is not da [sic] point, bt [sic] wait for da [sic] investigation and court proceedings.
“Analyze da [sic] recording den u will get ur answers sir [sic].”
Questions sent by Lowvelder to the second person in the recording to confirm if it is her voice, went unanswered.
Manamela could not be tracked down for comment.
Mathe said that the matters were internal and being dealt with. She said that the police cannot deliberate on these matters at this stage.
Lowvelder was confidentially informed that the case docket had already been transferred to the police head office where the anticorruption unit will now investigate it.
The paper could, however, not confirm this independently by the time of going to press.