PRETORIA – A 52-year-old senior Free State Health Department official appeared at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court over allegations of defrauding the department of R8.7 million over a five-year period.
Makhale Ntabe Godfrey Mahlatsi is accused of facilitating payment of R8.7m to companies for non-existing work. A total of 16 other accused were arrested and appeared in court in August last year.
They all face 304 charges of relating to the contravention of the Public Finance Management Act, forgery, uttering, fraud, corruption and money laundering.
According to Captain Christopher Singo, during the course of the regulatory audit, the audit team requested information on certain payments to service providers and subsequently queried the procurement processes that were followed.
“As a result, an internal investigation followed whereby it was discovered that false or forged requests for payment advices were submitted during the period of January 2011 to December 2015 for payments with regards to the service providers.”
Singo said no evidence could be found whether the actual services were rendered to the department by the service providers. “The department was prejudiced and suffered a total loss of more than R8m which was paid to the service providers.”
Mahlatsi has been released on R5 000 bail and will make his next appearance on 14 March.
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