Vodacom duped out of 8 700 phones
A flashy married couple have been implicated in a scheme involving iphones worth R24-million
Details of how mobile giant Vodacom was allegedly swindled out of R24.6-million through the “theft” of more than 8 700 Apple iphones by a Midrand couple and their colleagues have been revealed in an intricate trial.
Peter Poonsammy, who was stationed at Vodacom’s corporate offices in Midrand as a business analyst, is facing more than 70 theft and money laundering charges for allegedly stealing more than 8 700 iphone devices from April 2012 to July 2014.
Upmarket Mercedes Benz vehicles also form part of the state’s case as Poonsammy is accused of buying and selling the luxury cars as a means to allegedly “clean” the money prosecutors believe the former business analyst received from Vodacom.
The company told the Mail & Guardian that its systems had been fortified, preventing further breaches such as the one Poonsammy is accused of committing.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) charge sheet, Poonsammy was the sole director of Blaze Technology. The state alleges that Poonsammy fraudulently registered two accounts for his company as a Vodacom dealer to enable Blaze Technology to place cell phone device orders.
Poonsammy is accused of ordering and generating invoices for the phones, receiving them at his company’s warehouse, but not paying Vodacom for the so-called sales.
The trial is being prosecuted by the Investigating Directorate (ID) stationed in NPA head Shamila Batohi’s office.
The documents detail an elaborate scheme in which Poonsammy roped in his wife, Khemie Poonsammy, to launder the supposedly illicit gains through her Nedbank account. Khemie is the second accused in the case and is facing one count of money laundering.
The M&G recently reported on another high-profile case of an alleged family-run scam being probed by the ID, with Kishane and Krishna Chetty and their co-accused expected back in court this month for, the NPA said, capturing the South African Police Service to the tune of R100-million. Investigators in the case believe the amounts involved could total R1-billion.
The alleged Poonsammy scam, according to the NPA, began in April 2012, when 20 devices were ordered and delivered to Blaze Technology’s Halfway House address at a combined cost of R54 323.
In the seven months of 2014 before his 25 July arrest, Poonsammy is accused of stealing 5 100 iphones.
According to a breakdown of when the alleged fraudulent transactions occurred, Poonsammy began slowly by only purchasing not more than 70 devices per order.
From August 2013, the state claims that he upped his tempo and started procuring more than 100 phones at a time, with the biggest monthly buy for 2 300 iphones in June 2014, a month before his arrest.
“The devices were then sold to persons whose identities are currently to the state unknown, and the proceeds of the sales were paid into the [Standard Bank account of Poonsammy],” reads the NPA’S charge sheet.
Khemie Poonsammy, Rajeen Gokulpersad (accused number three) and Rajesh Rawchand (accused four) are the other accused facing trial.
Their legal representative, Rajen Naidoo, indicated in court that his clients were not guilty and that the state had no case against them. The trial was postponed during the last court appearance last month when Naidoo revealed that Gokulpersad could not attend due to unspecified medical reasons. When the trial resumes, Naidoo is expected to crossexamine Jabu Mogale, Vodacom’s forensic investigator.
Mogale, the state’s first witness, testified in his evidence-inchief how Vodacom had foiled the alleged scam, including providing the court with all 71 order numbers Poonsammy is accused of having generated for the alleged bogus sales of iphones.
In a statement this week, Vodacom’s spokesperson Byron Kennedy confirmed that it was aware of the theft and money-laundering case against its former employee.
Kennedy said the alleged breaches of Vodacom’s systems were not a cause for concern.
“We have put additional measures in place to prevent similar exploits from occurring,” Kennedy added.
Meanwhile, the state said Poonsammy and his wife were so brazen that, between 23 July and 25 July 2014, when they suspected that the net was closing in on them, the couple made transactions worth R650 000 to prepare for the legal defence, according to the charge sheet. Poonsammy purchased a Mercedes Benz C63 Coupe and a Mercedes Benz W176 for a combined sum of almost R2-million, as a way to allegedly launder the money.
In August 2014, a month after his arrest, Poonsammy allegedly transferred the C63 to Dawchand’s name and the W176 to Gokulpersad’s.
The NPA stated that the buying and transferring of the cars was to enable and assist “any person who has committed … an offence to avoid prosecution and/or remove or diminish any property acquired directly as a result of the commission of the offence”.
The four accused, who are all out on bail, are expected back in court next month.
The Ithala Development Finance Corporation has failed to act against its board chairperson, the politically connected auditor Roshan Morar, after the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) sanctioned him over an irregular R4-million PPE tender award granted to one of his companies.
The Kwazulu-natal provincial government’s development bank, which falls under the economic development ministry, failed to discuss the illegal tender and the SIU sanction of Morar at its board meeting last week as scheduled. Instead, it rolled the discussion over until its next scheduled meeting, at which Morar will be asked to explain the award of the PPE tender to his financial services company, Amakhono Investments.
Amakhono, of which Morar is the sole director, has agreed to pay back the profits it made on the deal.
The SIU launched the investigation after the irregular tender award — and a second to investigate missing face masks for the same department — was exposed by Mail & Guardian last year.
Morar, the owner of influential auditing firm Morar Incorporated and financial services company Amakhono Investments, was found to have secured the contract for supplying backpack spray guns to the Kwazulu-natal department of education by submitting key BBBEE documentation seven days after the tender closed on 22 May last year.
Amakhono’s bid for the tender, awarded in two tranches of R2-million each, was still processed and awarded by the department even though the failure to submit all documentation by the cut-off date meant it should have been disqualified.
Morar Incorporated, which holds lucrative contracts with several municipalities and provincial departments, was awarded an R8-million contract by the same department to audit the disappearance of millions of rands worth of face masks. It is not clear at this stage whether or not the SIU probed this award.
Morar was appointed to the board of a number of public entities during the tenure of former president Jacob Zuma. While a member of the Public Investment Corporation board, he presided over the loss of R9-billion in loans to the Lancaster Group. At the time, he was a director of a Lancaster subsidiary, L101.
When the M&G exposed the irregular award to Morar, Ithala defended Morar and said it would await the outcome of the SIU probe before taking a stance on his actions.
At the time of the sanction, Ithala said it was awaiting a report from Morar at its board meeting on 25 February before taking any decision about whether it should take action against him.
According to a report by the SIU’S Kwazulu-natal provincial head Ashish Gosai, the award to Amakhono was investigated in terms of proclamation R23, issued last year to allow the agency to probe allegations of corruption in Covid-19 emergency spending.
Investigators found that the PPE tender prerequisites were that bidders should submit a valid BBBEE certificate or affidavit as part of the bid documents by 22 May last year.
“The investigation revealed that the BBBEE affidavit submitted by Amakhono was dated 29 May 2020, which was seven days after the closing of the bid,” the report said.
“This would have rendered Amakhono noncompliant, and in the normal course of events, Amakhono would have been deemed nonresponsive and should have been eliminated from further consideration for the award.”
Morar was then “interviewed and confronted with our findings by the investigation team”.
“At this point, he conceded our case and alluded to the submission of the BBBEE affidavit after the closing date as being a possible administrative error by a staff member,” he said.
SIU investigators then informed Morar that they would have the contract set aside on review and seek a just and equitable damages order.
Amakhono then offered to settle the matter to avoid legal costs and lengthy court proceedings.
Gosai said they had accepted the offer because “no evidence of criminality was established on the part of Amakhono” and because the department had already used the PPE it had paid for and was willing to accept the settlement.
“The offer to repay the profit made by Amakhono would, in all probability, be the high watermark of our relief. From a cost-benefit analysis point of view, expending money on civil litigation would not be justifiable in the circumstances,” Gosai said.
Gosai said Morar agreed to pay back the profit on the irregular deal based on the mark-up he had added, minus “certain justifiable expenditure” by Amakhono.
“The settlement offer was deemed fair and in the public interest to accept,” Gosai said.
The settlement, he said, was approved by the SIU’S chief legal counsel.
Gosai said the SIU was pursuing disciplinary action against the education department officials who had approved the award of the contract.
Ithala spokesperson Sitandiwe Dimba said the matter had not been discussed because of time constraints. It would be discussed at the “next scheduled meeting”.
The MEC for education in the province, Kwazi Mthethwa, did not respond to several calls and messages from M&G.
Morar said the matter would be discussed on 9 March by the board.
Disciplinary proceedings against North West premier Job Mokgoro and four ANC members of the provincial legislature who defied the party and backed the Democratic Alliance (DA), began this week.
This despite an attempt last month by ANC secretary general Ace Magashule to halt the process pending an appeal by the five — whose party membership has been suspended — to Luthuli House to drop the charges.
On Tuesday, a preliminary session was held by the ANC North West disciplinary committee with Mokgoro, ahead of his matter being heard on 19 March. Mokgoro is still at work but is being “monitored” by the ANC leadership in the province.
On Wednesday, the same process started for the North West ANC Women’s League secretary Bitsa Lenkopane, Priscilla Williams, Aaron Motswana and Job Dliso. They were suspended for defying the ANC interim provincial committee (IPC) and backing an opposition move to hold votes by secret ballot.
They are also accused of voting for Williams as chair of chairs after she was nominated by the opposition DA, instead of the IPC’S choice, Leah Minga.
While the five had only expected to make their appearances before the ANC disciplinary committee later in March because of Magashule’s intervention last month, their preliminary hearings were held this week.
The first sitting of Makgoro’s disciplinary hearing had earlier been postponed until 19 March because of the appeal to the secretary general’s office.
A source in the ANC North West told the Mail & Guardian that the preliminary hearings had begun on Tuesday evening.
“Today is a pre-trial for the premier. The others will appear tomorrow,” he said.
Kenny Morolong, the spokesperson for the IPC, said he could not comment as the disciplinary committee operated independently of the provincial leadership.
“It will do its work and will deliver a report containing its findings,” Morolong said.
The rebellion by the five, all of whom are allies of the ousted
premier and chairperson Supra Mahumapelo, is the latest in a series of moves by his supporters to destabilise the IPC.
In 2018 the party national executive committee (NEC) dissolved the provincial executive committee (PEC), chaired by Mahumapelo, and replaced it with a provincial task team. Mahumapelo went to court and won, but a compromise leadership in the form of the IPC was appointed.
The party’s four regions in North West — Ruth Mompati, Bojanala, Ngaka Modiri Molema and Kenneth Kaunda — were also dissolved and replaced with regional interim committees.
The Ruth Mompati leadership has since gone to court to seek an order reinstating the regional executive committee. In contrast, former provincial secretary Papa Jood and other members have written to the
NEC demanding that their PEC be reinstated.
The fight between the two factions has also played itself out in the province’s dysfunctional municipalities.
The IPC fired the leadership troikas of five municipalities last year over the collapse of municipal services and alleged financial mismanagement, but the NEC later overturned the decision.
Last weekend, Ruth Mompati municipal manager Jerry Mononela was suspended for alleged misconduct. On Monday, his lawyers issued the municipality with a notice to reinstate him by Tuesday 2 March or face legal action.
In a letter of demand sent to the municipality, lawyer Michael Motsoeneng said that the suspension had been unlawful and that the municipality had failed to follow its own procedures in suspending him.
According to the letter, Mononela
was issued a letter by the council on 22 February, giving him seven days to show why he should not be suspended for misconduct. The council would then hold a hearing to determine whether or not to go ahead with the suspension on 4 March.
However, Mononela was then suspended by mayor Kgalalelo Sereko, himself recently appointed to the position, at midnight on 28 February, before the process had been concluded and in violation of the council’s own rules.
Motsoeneng said the allegations against Mononela “had been receiving attention in various structures and committees and was ongoing. This process had been unlawfully and unprocedurally hindered by the actions of the speaker.”
Motsoeneng said Mononela would continue to do his job and would go to court should the municipality go ahead with moves to suspend him.