Cape Town – A former national treasurer of political party the Congress of the People (Cope), Hildagrade Ndude, and her former personal assistant in Parliament, were each sentenced to three years house arrest on Monday.
Ndude pleaded guilty to 11 counts of fraud, and five of money laundering involving a total of R1.5 million.
Irene Motha pleaded guilty to three charges of fraud involving R20 000.
They appeared together in the Specialised Commercial Crime Court before magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg on Monday.
In addition to the house arrest, Ndude was sentenced to eight years jail, conditionally suspended for five years, on the 11 fraud charges, treated as one for the purpose of sentence.
She was also sentenced to a further five years, conditionally suspended for five years, for the five money laundering counts, which were also treated as one for the purpose of punishment.
The matter took the form of plea-bargain proceedings, negotiated by defence lawyer Mushtak Parker, with the prosecutor, senior State advocate Simon Leope.
The prescribed minimum sentence of 15 years applies to first time offenders found guilty of fraud involving R500,000 or more.
The prosecutor said the minimum sentence did not apply to Ndude, because each of the 11 fraud counts individually involved less than R500 000.
The magistrate declared the sentences to be just, in their entirety.
Cited in the charge sheet as accused number three, was the company Sithaba Holdings (Pty) Ltd, of which Ndude was one of the directors.
The company itself, as represented by Ndude, pleaded guilty to five counts of assisting another to benefit from the proceeds of crime.
According to the document, Ndude unlawfully transferred five amounts totaling R405,240 from Cope’s bank account into Sithaba’s bank account, between the years 2010 and 2011.
The company itself was fined R500 000, also conditionally suspended for five years, in a plea bargain negotiated by attorney Charl May.
According to the charge sheet, Cope had two main sources of funding – from the National Parliament, pro rata to the number of seats that the party occupies in Parliament, and from the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), for the purposes of functioning within the political sphere in the country.
In both cases, the funding was from taxpayers’ money and both had to have individual bank accounts and both were accounted for individually.
Ndude was the principal signatory for both accounts, together with the president of Cope.
According to the charge sheet, Ndude was Cope’s financial political head and, as the national treasurer, had to ensure transparent management of Cope’s affairs.
She and Motha manipulated Cope’s electronic system to divert payments meant for suppliers into their own personal bank accounts, between April 2010 and May 2011.
African News Agency
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