The Provincial Head of the Hawks, Major General Mboiki Obed Ngwenya, has appreciated the determination by the East London Serious Commercial Crime Investigation of the Hawks in partnership with National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in making sure that Ntombozuko Mgoqi (43) was sentenced by the Peddie Regional court on 19 April 2024 on charges of fraud and theft. He further commended the extraordinary work done by the team in ensuring that the accused received a deserving sentence.
Mgoqi is a former Municipal clerk at expenditure section in the Ngqushwa Local Municipality. Her co-accused, Nolufefe Mrhwebo (42) has since been sentenced to undergo to four years’ imprisonment on 25 May 2016.
During the period between December 2013 and June 2014, Mgoqi unlawfully and intentionally colluded with Mrhwebo to manipulate the municipal system to increase their salaries without employer’s authorisation. Subsequent to that, internal auditing picked up discrepancies in their salaries and the Municipality actually suffered a loss of over R200 000 from the unauthorised salary increase. The matter was referred to the Hawks for more investigation.
The investigation revealed that certainly Mgoqi had intentionally manipulated the municipal system to increase their salaries without the employer’s authorisation. That led to the duo being arrested by the Hawks on 14 September 2015 and appeared before Peddie Magistrate’s court on the same day and later released on R500 00 bail each.
Eight years after the sentencing of Mrhwebo, Mgoqi was ultimately sentenced by Peddie Regional court on 19 April 2024 to undergo five years’ direct imprisonment with no option of fine.
The post Former Municipal clerk sentenced to five years’ direct imprisonment for fraud and theft appeared first on South Africa Today.