Court orders ex-Municipal official to repay R500,000 using his pension fund after fraud conviction

A Western Cape municipal official convicted of defrauding the municipality has been ordered to pay back R500,000 using his pension fund. 

Bergrivier Municipality's former Chief Credit Control, Pieter Jacobus Adams was found guilty of 435 counts of fraud in the Bellville Commercial Crimes Court. 

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said Adams was sentenced to 10 years direct imprisonment with 6 years suspended for 5 years. 

"It then granted a confiscation order to the value of his full pension of over R500,000 to be paid over to the Bergrivier Municipality," explained Western Cape NPA spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila. 

Adams worked at the municipality for 17 years. He worked as a credit controller from July 1, 2002, until he resigned on November 25, 2019

Explaining the merits of the case, the NPA said Adam's duties included the issue of (free) replacement electricity tokens in respect of meters that have been replaced and still have units on the meter. 

"He was also in charge of submitting any suspected tempering of metering units to the water/ electricity department for further investigation, print tokens needed by the electricity department, like power limits, key changes, and free issues."

In September 2019, the municipality discovered the accused’s prepaid electricity meter was replaced and changed to an indigent tariff, and to effect the said change was issued by the accused. 

"He did not report this to his direct manager. This led to an internal investigation which revealed that from March 2016 until September 2019, he issued free electricity tokens on prepaid meters that were not replaced.

"The investigation also revealed that free electricity tokens were issued monthly to the same prepaid meters."

The court heard that Adam issued these free electricity tokens outside normal office hours and within normal office hours.

The Bergrivier Municipality was prejudiced for R1,310,507.40 because of his misrepresentations.

"His fraud had an enormous financial impact on Bergrivier Municipality, impacting the reputation of the municipality and the trust the public had in them to ensure effectiveness in good governance, accountability, financial sustainability, and service delivery.

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