A former taxi-industry boss, Mafereka was charged with murder in November 2000, while he was serving as Speaker of the Free State Provincial Legislature.
Mafereka was acquitted of all charges in 2002 and Premier Beatrice Marshoff appointed him to the Free State Executive Council at the beginning of the next legislative term.
After failing to gain re-election to the legislature in the 2009 general election, Mafereka chaired the North West arm of the Commission on Traditional Leadership Disputes and Claims until his illness and death in 2013.
[4] On 18 November 2000, Mafereka was arrested by the Special Investigation Unit at Johannesburg International Airport shortly after returning from a trip to Cuba.
In early May 2002, the court acquitted Mafereka on all charges, judging that the National Prosecuting Authority had failed to prove his guilt beyond reasonable doubt.
[8] In the week after his arrest in November 2000, Mafereka had been suspended as the Speaker of the provincial legislature and as a member of the ANC, pending the outcome of the trial.