Johannesburg - Police are looking for a Lydenburg man who defrauded Eskom of R1 million worth of electricity by providing power to eight farms and a hotel through meter tampering and bypassing.
Mondo Viljoen was convicted last Friday in the Lydenburg Magistrate’s Court on 28 charges related to electricity theft. He was found guilty on nine counts of fraud, nine counts of conspiracy and 10 counts of malicious damage to property. He’s still at large.
Viljoen first appeared in court in March this year when the eight farmers to whom he provided the illegal electricity turned State witness and testified against him.
All the farmers were indemnified from further prosecution as their testimony was found to be credible. The farmers repaid Eskom all money due, which amounted to R1m. It was found that there had been meter tampering on a number of farms across the country and at a hotel in Limpopo.
One of the witnesses, Anton Bezuidenhout, told the court in March that he received an unsolicited visit from Viljoen, who told him that he could reduce his electricity bill by up to 30 percent for a fee of R1 500. After the tampering was discovered, Bezuidenhout was handed a R200 000 fine that he had to pay to Eskom.
In addition to the witness testimony, investigators also gathered extensive evidence during a two-year investigation that started in Pongola, KwaZulu-Natal, which led to Viljoen’s conviction.
On Friday, he failed to appear in court, and after magistrate Andries Lamprecht read his 51-page judgment in Viljoen’s absence, he issued the warrant of arrest. This is the third time Viljoen failed to appear in court after previous postponements.
Viljoen’s lawyer informed the court that he had received a text message from his client informing him that he would not attend the hearing because he was suicidal.
According to Operation Khanyisa, the Eskom-led campaign aimed at combating electricity theft, two-thirds of the billions of rand worth of energy lost every year in South Africa are from the business, industry and agriculture sectors. The campaign urges more South Africans to play their part by reporting electricity theft to 32211.
The Star