By Sharika Regchand
The policeman who charged a businessman with defrauding the provincial Education Department allegedly knew the businessman was allowed to make a profit doing what he did – but charged him anyway – it emerged in the Pietermaritzburg High Court yesterday.
David Themba Ndhlovu, a former senior education official, claimed he told investigator Alan Nixon that there was nothing in businessman Jabulani Mabaso’s agreement with the department precluding him from making a profit.
But Mabaso was still charged with inflating the price of stationery – which the State conceded, at the end of its case, that he be discharged of.
Mabaso was also charged with fraud for not passing on discounts to the department and for producing fake invoices.
The State is still pursuing a conviction on these charges.
Ndhlovu said business people were entitled to make a profit from any business with the government “within certain perimeters”. He said that he had spoken to Nixon about the case and even made a 20-page affidavit in this regard, of which he still had an electronic copy.
Mabaso’s advocate, Willie Vermeulen SC, said: “Remarkably no such affidavit is contained in the docket.”
Ndhlovu said he had responded to several draft affidavits, sent to him by Nixon, until he signed the one that “best articulated” his view.
Mabaso’s defence against the remaining charges is that he was allowed to provide the department with his own invoices and supporting documents reflecting a list of items supplied, to receive payment for stationery purchased, and that he did not have to forge invoices. Ndhlovu was unable to contradict this.
Mabaso was paid a management fee, he said, for the costs of running his business, staff, setting up his system, the hiring of warehouses to store the stationery and to pack and unpack the material.
The case was to continue today.
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