A deputy director of the Department of Education in KwaZulu-Natal and her husband were sentenced to six years in prison for defrauding her employer of more than R8 million.
Susan Ameetha Datadin, 63, her husband, Pradeep Datadin, 64, and Mohammed Saleem, 63, were recently sentenced in the Ntuzuma Regional Court.
The couple were each found guilty on 11 counts of fraud.
The court determined that Datadin had exploited her position within the department to engineer fraudulent procurement practices.
She did this by preparing and submitting multiple quotations from close corporations under her control, giving the false impression of a competitive bidding process.
In doing so, she manipulated the department into awarding contracts to her entities, resulting in a loss of R8 110 118.
Pradeep was convicted for having conspired with Datadin to control a syndicate of five entities that received contracts awarded by the department.
Saleem, who was linked to some of the contracted companies, was convicted on two counts of fraud and sentenced to 18 months of direct imprisonment.
Major General Lesetja Senona, the provincial head of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) in KZN, welcomed the sentence and congratulated the members for the good work.
Muzi Mahlambi, spokesperson for the KZN Department of Education, said: “We welcome the verdict of the court. We hope this will be a lesson to many out there that such things are not tolerated and have serious implications.”