Man gets 6-year prison sentence for defrauding North West municipality out of R1m

• A North West man will be spending six years in prison for defrauding a local municipality. 
• The man collected two cheques from the municipality for services he did not render. 
• He failed to repay the money. 

A North West man who defrauded the Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality of more than R1 milliion has been sentenced to six years in prison.

The 47-year-old Kealeboga Coldridge Mongae was sentenced in the Zeerust Regional Court.

According to National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Henry Mamothame, Mongae collected two cheques from the municipality in 2012 for services he did not render.

At the time, Mongae was a liaison officer between the municipality, Born Free Investments (Pty) LTD, Lesedisedi and Lebogangkatlego Joint Venture, and private companies that were contracted by the municipality to render a service.

"He then pretended to collect the cheques on behalf of the two companies and cashed the money for his private use," Mamothame said.

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"Before being summoned to appear in court on 29 April 2021, the municipality had to pay the same amount to the service providers he defrauded. The municipality requested that he reimburse the money that he defrauded, but he failed to honour his commitment to repay. The court granted him R20 000 bail before the commencement of the trial.

He said the State had argued in aggravation of sentence that fraud was a serious criminal offence which often led to community unrest due to a lack of service delivery.

It argued that municipalities and government departments often carried the blame for lack of services delivery, while the real culprits were ordinary members of the community who were defrauding the state.

Mamothame said that, during sentencing, Magistrate James Mothibi had "alluded to the rifeness of fraud in the country and found that a wholly suspended sentence to give him a further chance to repay the money, after he failed to do so in nine years, will not send a clear message to communities that courts take the commissioning of fraud seriously".