Johannesburg - Three SAPS employees have been arrested for allegedly defrauding the state of R37 000 in fake overtime claims.
The corrupt trio are accused of submitting fraudulent overtime claims each month for the past eight months, even stealing the password of their unsuspecting commander to finish the job, said Lieutenant Carol Mulamu, spokeswoman for the Gauteng Hawks.
The Hawks arrested the three police employees at around 9am on Wednesday while they were on duty at Brakpan police station, Mulamu said.
“We are applying our zero-tolerance policy against crime and corruption to this case,” she added.
“These people are portraying our police organisations in a bad light, so we were happy to bring them to book,” she explained.
Mulamu said the Hawks had been aware of the trio’s actions for about a week, but they waited until they had gathered sufficient evidence that would stand up in acourt of law before arresting them.
The group were allegedly led by a man, 33, who worked in the police station’s finance department and filed claims for himself as well as his wife and his sister-in-law, aged 37 and 44 respectively.
The wife worked in the human resource management department and the sister-in-law in the loss management division, Mulamu said.
The three were expected to appear in the Brakpan Magistrate’s Court on Thursday on charges of fraud and corruption.
The Star