SANDF HR officer among accused in R1.1 m fraud case
A human resource officer of the South African National Defense Force (SANDF) is among five people who appeared before the Pretoria Commercial Crimes’ Court on Thursday for allegedly paying ghost employees.
The group, aged between 29 and 45, face a total of 53 charges collectively for allegedly defrauding the SANDF of R1.1 million.
National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson, Lumka Mahanjana, said Thandile Ndevu, who is the main suspect in the case, was a reserve force member under the HR unit with responsibility that included calling reserve force employees for service.
Her job included capturing on the system the ‘On Strength’ reserve force members who report for duty, as well as capturing their banking details on the system.
According to Mahanjana, between July 2018 and July 2019, Ndevu allegedly captured details of SANDF reserve force members as though they were called for duty and replaced their banking details with those of her co-accused, where the payment for service was made.
“This was discovered after one of the complainants in the matters whose details were used went to do her tax filing at South African Revenue Service (SARS) and discovered that she had two IRP5 forms she needed to submit instead of the one she had brought.”
She added that the complainant discovered that there were four other ghost workers when she went to enquire about the matter at the SANDF.
“The complainants then reported the matter to the Pretoria Central police station, and the matter was then transferred to the military police for investigation. After the investigations by the military police, the 6 accused persons were summoned through J175 summons," Mahanjana added.
The matter has been postponed to the 15th of August for a plea and trial.
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