Cape Town - A former Bergriver municipality official convicted of defrauding the municipality has been ordered to pay back R500 000 using his pension fund.
Pieter Jacobus Adams, a former Chief Clerk was found guilty of 435 counts of fraud in the Bellville Commercial Crimes Court.
Adams was sentenced to ten years imprisonment with six years suspended for a R1.3 million electricity token fraud.
The court convicted Adams on 435 counts of fraud and sentenced him to 10 years direct imprisonment with 6 years suspended for 5 years.
It then granted a confiscation order to the value of his full pension of over R500 000 to be paid over to the Bergrivier Municipality.
Eric Ntabazalila of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) resigned from his position on November 25 2019 and said his duties included a list of responsibilities.
“His duties included the issue of (free) replacement electricity tokens in respect of metres that have been replaced and still have units on the metre, adding new pre-paid metres on the pre-paid system, submitting any suspected tempering of metering units to the water/ electricity department for further investigation, print tokens needed by the electricity department, like power limits, key changes and free issues,” he detailed.
Ntabazalila said he was also responsible for capturing prepaid metre details on the financial system, updating information concerning existing consumers and when metres were replaced.
The State alleges that on September 19 2019, the municipality discovered Adams prepaid electricity meter was replaced and that it was changed to an indigent tariff.
“He did not report this to his direct manager. This led to an internal investigation which revealed that from March 2016 until September 2019, he issued free electricity tokens on prepaid metres that were not replaced,” Ntabazalila said.
“The investigation also revealed that free electricity tokens were issued monthly to the same prepaid metres.
“These free electricity tokens were issued outside normal office hours and within normal office hours.
“Several prepaid metres had significant amounts of electricity units loaded on them in circumstances when the customers had not bought electricity from the municipality for a long time and therefore ought to have had few units if any.”
Ntabazalila said no supporting documents could be found relating to the replaced metres nor for the issuing of free electricity tokens.
“In aggravation of sentence, the State argued that the accused was a public (government) official and in a relationship and position of trust with his employer, abused his position of trust defrauded his employer for his benefit and caused the Bergrivier Municipality to suffer actual prejudice in the amount to R1 310 507.40 because of his misrepresentations,” he added.
“He showed total disregard for the municipal ratepayers and electricity consumers. Funding had to be taken from other delivery items meant for service delivery like lightning, roads, and streets to make up for the loss suffered by the municipality.”