The fraud case against Buffalo City Metro chief financial officer Vincent Pillay, supply chain manager Thembelani Sali, councillor Luleka Simon-Ndzele and the city’s lawyer, Matthew Moodley, was yet again postponed in the East London Magistrate’s Court yesterday.
The four were joined in the dock by former BCM mayor Zukiswa Ncitha and the city’s head of executive support services, Ncumisa Sidukwana.
Ncitha and Simon-Ndzele are also co-accused in the Mandela funeral fraud matter that was heard in the East London Regional Court on Tuesday.
Yesterday state prosecutor Advocate Diniso Ketani asked presiding magistrate Rochelle Sam to postpone the matter to July 24, so that he could provide the defence with an annexure to the charge sheet.
“Copies of the docket are readily available at the Hawks offices, the defence just need to bring A4 paper so that we can make them copies. The state does not have money to buy paper,” Ketani said.
He said investigations into the matter had been finalised.
Lawyer for the accused advocate Mike Maseti said he was disappointed by Ketani's submission.
“We were of the view that today we would be given a regional court date to arrange for a trial date.
“These are not your ordinary staffers, these are senior people in the municipality.
“The whole machinery at BCM has ground to a halt,” Maseti said.
Sam noted Maseti’s submissions and postponed the matter to July 24 for a regional court date.
The accused are facing two charges of fraud and contravening the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).
The charges emanate from an incident on May 7, 2015 when Sidukwana allegedly submitted a memorandum to former municipal manager Andile Fani requesting approval for a deviation in appointing Moodley.
According to papers before the court, Sali allegedly supported the memorandum saying: “The accounting officer has the authority to approve the deviation as reflected in regulation 36(1)(a) (i)(v) of the Municipal Finance Management Act based on the expositions in this memorandum.”
But Fani refused to approve the deviation.
The state alleges that three days later Sidukwana asked an employee to write a requisition requesting legal services and submit it to Sali’s department for processing without supporting documents.
Moodley was hired and allegedly quoted R189000 for his services.
Moodley was accused of billing BCM for work done from May 7, 2015 while in fact he started working on May 13.
Pillay was charged for contravening Section 174(3) of the MFMA, but no details of the allegation were given. — zwangam@dispatch.co.za