A TOP Bulawayo City Council official in the treasury department allegedly defrauded the local authority of close to $200 000 through fraudulently clearing arrears for ratepayers and pocketing the money. NQOBILE BHEBHE CHIEF REPORTER
The scam described by council as “simple yet effective fraud scheme” prejudiced council of $171 703 for a period spanning from January 2013 to May this year.
A total of 122 accounts are involved including $1 200 for Magwegwe Methodist church “which she coincidentally happens to be a member of and her husband the treasurer”.
The council official is alleged to have taken advantage of council’s cocktail of incentives, among them a once-off 50% discount on amounts owed if the arrears were settled before June 30, in a bid to ease the burden on Bulawayo’s struggling industries.
According to a council confidential report seen by Southern Eye, a council audit committee instituted investigations after an assistant financial director spotted anomalies during a routine check-up on corporate consumer accounts.
The report says it was during the process of implementing the 50% discount that the official “allegedly passed fictitious journals to enable undeserving commercial consumers to qualify”.
“A simple plan was used in which undeserving consumers were credited with a 50% discount without making any payments to council,” the report reads.
“To enable the consumer to benefit from 50% incentive scheme, she would credit the account by passing a fictitious cash journal so as to qualify the consumer for the 50% discount scheme. (The) audit noted that instead of debiting a relevant income account when affecting the 50% discount, she would debit a dummy account and then credit consumer accounts in order to conceal the transactions.”
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In conducting its investigations, the audit team perused through journals passed by the official from January last year to May this year.
The investigators also sought beneficiaries of the scheme, but noted that some of them were said to be unco-operative, as they “responded with similar answers, which suggested that they were instructed not to reveal the identity of their link”.
According to the report, some of the beneficiaries, including Nokuthula Ndala of Vundu Flats, Simiso Rwasai and Travor Gohori both of Makokoba, were interviewed.
Gohori, who had arrears of $142, was linked to the council official by her husband, whom “he once helped in prayers”.
Ndala and Rwasai had accumulated arrears of $400 and $300, respectively and were convinced they did not have the capacity to clear these arrears, the report said.
“Both Nokuthula Ndala and Simiso Rwasai approached a Mr Travor Gohori (on separate occasions) and narrated their predicament to him.
“According to the two accounts of events, Gohori indicated that he knew of someone working for council who could clear their accounts if they paid a fraction of that bill to that person.
“Nokuthula Ndala and Simiso Rwasai subsequently paid $100 and $80 to Gohori to facilitate the clearance of the accounts” part of the report reads.
Ndala and Rwasai later checked their accounts and established that they had been cleared.
However, the deal almost backfired for Ndala, who later received a bill of $168 from the local authority and complained to Gohori about it.
Gohori confronted the council official, who said it was new bill, but demanded $60 to clear it.
On Gohori, described as the kingpin, the report said he offered $50 to the council official’s husband for onward transmission to facilitate the illegal clearing of the debt.
When interviewed by the audit team, the official reportedly vehemently denied prejudicing the local authority of $171 703 and said she never shared her password with anyone.
“She alleged that she was being set up by someone using her password illegally. She, however, was unable to proffer any names of suspects.”
However, the audit team said the scam exposed laxity in supervisory controls and “supervisors did not enhance internal controls instead of putting in place checks and balances on the system they assisted in the collapse of the internal control system”.
