Two former Gauteng department of education officials from the Gauteng West district abused the trust placed in them by the department.
Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court magistrate Philip Venter said this on Thursday as he sentenced Kenneth Maredi and Banyana Mokela to time in prison.
The two were part of a syndicate that operated between April 2014 and November 2015. They created ghost employees and misappropriated R3.8m for their own benefit. Maredi deposited some of the money into his brother Thabiso Ralethe’s account.
The three were convicted in May of fraud, forgery and theft.
At the centre of this scheme was Maredi, who is serving a sentence in another unrelated fraud matter. Venter said Maredi and Mokela acted with greed to enrich themselves and continued to use the money.
Mokela had the chance to give back the money after her colleague was arrested but she continued to transfer the funds to her bond account.
It is quite clear from the department that we really wanted [this] to be a deterrent to all our employees that you don’t need to engage in any criminal activities because consequences will be dire
— Steve Mabona, Gauteng education department spokesperson
Venter said were it not for a school principal noticing he had been asked to sign a payroll authorising pay for non-existing teachers, the officials would not have been detected.
“Accused No 2 [Maredi] was identified as the main perpetrator behind the fraud. He ran the scourge for several months before accused No 3 [Mokela] was involved,” he said.
Mokela’s version of being oblivious to her colleague’s conduct was rejected by the court.
“The day after accused No 2 [Maredi] was arrested, accused No 3 [Mokela] continued to transfer the funds to the other account.”
The officials created fictitious employees and looted almost R3.8m from the department.
The court heard that Ralethe, who was dismissed from his employment at a bank before becoming involved in the scheme, only benefited to the tune of R4,000 from the R99,000 deposited into his account.
The fraud, involving seven employees from the human resources unit of the Gauteng West district, was uncovered through an internal risk investigation by the Gauteng education department.
A criminal case was initially opened in 2016, which ultimately led to the arrest of the two former employees alongside their external accomplices. The five other employees implicated in the department’s internal investigation were dismissed after an internal disciplinary process. Their dismissals were challenged at the Public Service Sectoral Bargaining Council. The department successfully defended its actions at both the Labour Court and the Labour Appeal Court.
On Thursday Mokela — who the court heard had been suffering from stress since the beginning of the trial, causing her face to swell up — was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment.
Maredi was sentenced to an effective six-year jail term.
Ralethe was sentenced to three years, wholly suspended for five years.
Gauteng education department spokesperson Steve Mabona said the law had taken its course.
“It is quite clear from the department that we really wanted [this] to be a deterrent to all our employees that you don’t need to engage in any criminal activities because consequences will be dire,” he said.
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