THE good motorists dutifully paid their traffic summonses to the department via postal orders.
But they should rather have kept the money for themselves.
That’s because while they believed their payments were going to the department of transport, R7,4 million ended up in corrupt officials’ pockets!
On top of that, the fraud scheme appears to have been going on for eight years before the department found out.
The theft of taxpayers’ money was finally uncovered by the department’s anti-fraud and corruption unit.
Department spokesman Joshua Kwapa said following their findings, three officials have been dismissed while 10 resigned. One official is currently going through a disciplinary hearing. “The investigation and the breakthrough follow information that revenue was being lost at various district traffic stations,” said Kwapa.
He said according to their findings, traffic cops and revenue officers were collecting postal orders from various post offices in the province.
“They would then redeem them and fail to deposit the money in the departmental bank account,” Kwapa said.
He said cases of fraud were opened with the commercial crime unit.
Limpopo MEC for Transport and Community Safety Nandi Ndalane welcomed the breakthrough.
“We will continue to investigate any acts of corruption,” she said.