CIVIL servant Ziqelekazi Matyholo (45) was sentenced for fraud by the East London Regional Court on Friday, 10 February.
The sentencing comes after her conviction on 2 February for numerous counts of fraud.
According to Hawks spokeswoman Captain Yolisa Mgolodela, Matyholo was employed as a senior admin clerk for the Department of Justice, attached to the Human Resource Section, during the period between 1 May 2008 and 15 September 2009.
She said she was responsible for facilitating redeployment, implementing relocation costs, furniture removal and resettlement benefits of the existing government employees appointed to other posts within the department.
“On discovering some discrepancies where even new employees were paid relocation costs and resettlement benefits which they did not qualify for, the Department of Justice lodged a complaint with the East London-based Serious Commercial Crimes Investigation team of the Hawks for probing in December 2010, which culminated in the arrest of Matyholo on 4 July 2012,” said Mgolodela.
She said their investigations revealed that Matyholo requested invoices from the service providers for the removal of furniture for the Department of Justice employees who relocated to different districts around the Eastern Cape and the Free State.
“She processed and submitted the quotations and invoices for the removal of the furniture to the department for payment, of which the department approved and paid for.”
“She then instructed the service providers to withdraw the money and hand it over to her. It later dawned on them that the service providers never even rendered the services. The Department of Justice was thus prejudiced cash to the value of more than R113 000,” she said.
Mgolodela said Matyholo was arrested on 4 July 2012 and was released on warning the same day.
She added that she subsequently made several court appearances before her conviction.
“She was sentenced to five years on each of 15 counts of fraud, and all counts were said to run concurrently,” said Mgolodela.
