The East London Regional court has yesterday, February 2, convicted Ziqelekazi Matyholo (44) on numerous counts of fraud.
Matyholo was employed as a Senior Admin Clerk for the Department of Justice, attached to Human Resource Section during the period between May 1, 2008 and September 15, 2009.
She was responsible for facilitating redeployment, implementing relocation costs, furniture removal and resettlement benefits of the new appointees and officials of the department.
On discovering some discrepancies where even new employees were paid relocation costs and resettlement ? benefits, the Department of Justice lodged a complaint with the East London based Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team of the Hawks for probing in December 2010, which culminated in the arrest of Matyholo on July 4, 2012.
“The 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 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,” said Eastern Cape Hawks spokesperson, Captain Yolisa Mgolodela.
“She then instructed the service providers to withdraw the money and hand it over to her. It later dawned 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,” added Mgolodela.
Matyholo made her short appearance in the East London Magistrate’s court on the same day where she was released on warning. She subsequently made several court appearances before her conviction on February 2, 2022.
The matter was remanded to March 25, 2022, for sentencing.
ISSUED BY THE DIRECTORATE FOR PRIORITY CRIMES INVESTIGATION (HAWKS)
