Dated: February 6 2013
By DAILY NEWS REPORTER
The former financial manager of Indiza Infrastructure Solutions has testified that she resigned after less than a year in the post, having discovered fraudulent invoices which her boss was unwilling to discuss.
Jillian Broughton, who was hired by Indiza managing director Jabulani Mabaso in August 2006, said she quit in May 2007 after she discovered that invoices had been created and then submitted to the KZN Department of Education.
“I was not comfortable with the way things were done,” Broughton told the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Tuesday.
Mabaso is on trial and is accused of defrauding the department of R200 million. It is alleged that he made his staff fabricate and inflate invoices.
According to Broughton’s evidence, these invoices were made in the name of African Spirit Trading and Palm Stationers, which were submitted to the education department.
Broughton said Mabaso would have been aware the invoices were forged because he was solely responsible for making payments to suppliers.
Broughton herself only became aware of the forged invoices when a department official contacted her to verify the details of Palm Stationers.
When she confronted Mabaso with a forged invoice and asked him how they should proceed, Broughton said Mabaso was “not agreeable to discussing it”. That is when she made the decision to resign.
Mabaso has pleaded not guilty to four charges of fraud, seven of forgery and seven of uttering. The charges relate to a tender awarded to Indiza by the KZN Department of Education for the supply of stationery to schools in 2005.
Indiza acted as an agent for the department, procuring stationery from suppliers and facilitating its supply and distribution to schools in the province.
Indiza is being liquidated.
The State alleges that African Spirit Trading was a company created by Mabaso, which served as a supplier of stationery to Indiza at inflated prices, which in turn supplied the department.
Mabaso is out on bail of R500 000. The trial continues.
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