Pankie must pay back the money – EFF
ANC chief whip Stone Sizani’s wife back in court for fraud
THE ANC parliamentary chief whip’s wife, Portia “Pankie” Sizani, found herself in the firing line of the Economic Freedom Fighters’ now famous chant of “pay back the money” as her R1.2-million fraud trial resumed yesterday. This time an alleged “ghost” teacher conceded that she lied to police, but insisted that the story she told was fed to her by Sizani.
Sizani, 46, of Summerstrand, is the wife of ANC bigwig Stone Sizani.
She is accused of defrauding the Eastern Cape Department of Education of more than R1.2-million by processing fraudulent applications for Grade R teaching posts before pocketing their salaries.
“We demand that she pays back the money or face jail time,” EFF Nelson Mandela Bay economic transformation and land officer Yoliswa Yako said.
About 10 EFF members sat in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court yesterday, where Sizani seemed calm in the dock as she jotted down notes.
But while the EFF showed pity on state wit- nesses, calling them innocent bystanders, one teacher crumbled under cross-examination by the defence.
Khutala Tise, 34, said she had applied for a Grade R post while working at Magnum Motors in 2009. Some time towards the end of the year, she had handed her CV and certified copies of her ID and matric certificate to Sizani, who was the Early Childhood Development district coordinator at the time.
Tise said that in November 2009, Sizani phoned her to inform her that just more than R22 000 would be deposited into her bank account.
“Mrs Sizani said this was a mistake and that I should withdraw R20 000 and return it to her,” Tise said.
Asked by defence advocate Johan Wessels why she had kept the outstanding amount, about R2 000, Tise said: “[Sizani] said it was my pay. They had appointed me.”
Wessels said: “But you were working at Magnum?” Tise responded: “I didn’t ask questions.” Wessels said Tise had no proof that she had handed this money back to Sizani and it would ultimately boil down to her word against Sizani’s.
“I will eventually argue that you chop and change your evidence and that we can’t rely on you,” he said.
Asked why Tise had then told the police in her initial statement that R23 100 was paid into her account, Tise said she had made a mistake.
Several follow-up questions were answered with “I don’t recall”, eventually prompting magistrate Mputumi Mpofu to remark: “As a witness, if you can’t recall, who will?”
Tise said when members of the Special Investigations Unit visited her prior to Sizani’s arrest, she gave them false information such as where and when she commenced work.
She said she told them that she worked at Sithembile Pre-School, which does not exist.
She had phoned Sizani to ask what she should tell the police and had then relayed that story to them.
Yako said Sizani had not only allegedly stolen money from the public, but had robbed the children of the Eastern Cape during a critical foundation stage in their education.
“She has exploited the fact that our people are unemployed, by using their names to generate more income fraudulently while they slept on an empty stomach,” she said.
“What is astounding in this whole process is that Mrs Sizani was using a state phone, office and car to organise this corruption. We demand [that] the court brings an end to this case.”
The trial continues.