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SUSPECT SENTENCED TO 135 YEARS FOR STEALING COVID-19 TERS FUND

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The Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court, in Palm Ridge has sentenced a bookkeeper, Lindelani Gumede on Thursday, 18 July 2022, to 135 years, for theft of the Covid-19 Temporary Employer/Employee Relief Scheme (TERS) Fund.

NPA Spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane says Gumede was convicted on 32 counts of theft, to the tune of more than R11 million, by creating and submitting applications for employees on the Covid19Ters system, purporting, in a form of Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files, that they were employed by companies that he rendered bookkeeping services for.

Furthermore the companies included Country pies, LPG Clotilda (Pty) Ltd, Odonus Investments (Pty) Ltd and La Mela (Pty) Ltd. This, even though these entities never submitted applications for temporary relief funds to the Department of Labour

The NPA applauds the investigating officer, Warrant Officer, Thamsanqa Kraai and Adv Mhlongo for securing a sentence, that serves to teach the public that those days of abusing and misappropriating public coffers are over.

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