Ex-ADM worker sentenced for fraud
A FORMER Amathole district municipality employee turned businessman and community church leader, Kaya Mbewu, was yesterday sentenced in the East London Magistrate’s Court to five years’ imprisonment or a R20 000 fine for fraud.
Mbewu, 33, is currently the principal contractor of a R26.5-million Hamburg Clinic project by Coega Development Corporation on behalf of the Eastern Cape department of health.
He opted to pay the fine yesterday.
The court outcome angered the complainant, Miranda Mtwecu, who told the Daily Dispatch outside court it should have sent a warning to other would-be fraudsters.
Mtwecu of Mtwecu Construction hired Mbewu in 2011 to serve as a project manager in the construction of Machibini Primary School in Mount Coke outside King William’s Town. Court records showed Mtwecu would deposit money into Mbewu’s Absa account until he complained about bank charges. The two then agreed to open joint business account.
Mtwecu’s clients, the Independent Development Trust, and department of rural development and land affairs, deposited money into Mtwecu Construction business account.
She would then transfer money from her business account to the joint account to enable the Mount Coke project to continue without hindrance.
Addressing the court during the course of the case, state prosecutor Advocate Luthando Makoyi said: “The complainant was shocked when she received a message on her mobile phone notifying her an amount of R215 141.20 was deposited directly from the Independent Development Trust into the business’s joint account. Her understanding and arrangement was that the money was supposed to go to her main account.”
The court found that Mbewu had forged Mtwecu’s signature in letter instructing all Mtwecu Construction clients to change the banking details from her main account to the joint account.
Magistrate Twanet Olivier said a civil suit against Mbewu would now follow where the state would apply to sell his two cars and a house to recoup some of the money. —