RTA employee charged with embezzlement
dubai — An employee at the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has gone on trial in the Court of First Instance on the charge of abusing his post and embezzling Dh224,508 along with unknown accomplices. He allegedly misused the fuel-filling cards belonging to his workplace.
The 41-year-old Emirati occupied the post of a parking supervisor from January 1, 2013 to July 15, 2015 when he allegedly pocketed the large amounts of money while putting on record bogus fuel refilling transactions done on the cars he drove at that time.
The money was wrongfully withdrawn on the cards on multiple occasions by the defendant with the help of staff at a petrol station in Al Ghubaiba. A complaint was filed at Al Rafaa police station.
An internal auditor of RTA said: “The defendant had been working with the RTA since March 2010. In August 2015, we were informed by one of our auditors about some discrepancies in the bills sent to us by a petrol station with which we had an agreement to provide our cars with fuel.”
After examining the bills, it became clear all the suspected receipts were on the cars the defendant drove. The manipulated fuel receipts were worth Dh224,508.
“After inquiring from the accused about the routine procedure he followed to refill fuel, and confronting him with the discrepancies in the bills issued while he was on the job, the latter admitted he had done bogus transactions of fuel refilling with the help of some petrol station staff,” the internal auditor told the prosecutor.
“He would give the RTA card to a petrol employee who would then use it on other cars not belonging to the authority. He would collect money in cash from motorists and hand it over to the defendant.”
The defendant admitted he would pay those workers at the petrol station small amounts of money for their “cooperation”.
A report was written and filed to the general director of the RTA who then recommended that a criminal complaint be opened against the accused. The trial will continue on December 13.
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