Ex-government employee to face charges

A former employee of the Department of Community Safety is facing criminal charges for allegedly manipulating a payment system so that the department's payments to service providers landed in the bank accounts of herself and her partner.

The Assets Forfeiture Unit has already obtained a court order allowing it to attach their vehicles - a red VW Polo Classic and a green 3-series BMW.

The unit has applied to the Cape High Court to have the vehicles declared forfeited to the state.

The employee, Priscilla Fulumeni, worked as a provision clerk in the supply chain management unit of the Department of Community Safety, and her partner, Vusumzi Mvundlela, is an electronics technician at the SA Breweries in Newlands.

The couple lives in Khayelitsha.

In an affidavit, Asset Investigation Task Team investigator Mzubanzi Ntitsolo said as part of Fulumeni's duties, she had access to the Logistical Information System, which records all authorised payments to the department's service providers.

She was authorised to make these payments. The supply chain management unit discovered fraud when service providers contacted it to complain about their bills not being settled.

An investigation revealed that Fulumeni had changed the account details of the service providers to those of herself and her partner.

The unit discovered that the service providers had not given the department notification of a change of banking details.

The service providers affected by the alleged fraud are Twoline Trading, Sure Trigon Travel, Chanti's Travels and Rennies Travel.

Her colleague said, in a separate affidavit, that Fulumeni had stolen her password to authorise the change. The investigation established that close to R750 000 was deposited into Fulumeni's account between December 2004 and April this year.

An amount of R132 000 was paid into the account of Mvundlela.

Both of them have been arrested on charges of fraud and theft and the matter is pending in the Bellville Commercial Crimes Court.