Industrial Court in funds embezzlement
Mompati Tlhankane | Monday June 6, 2022 06:00
Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday, Industrial Court accounting officer, Anna Mphetlhe disclosed that the said misappropriation of funds specifically relates to court deposits. Court deposits consist of sums, which are either paid to court or into the treasury under the orders of the court. “This investigation relates to court deposits. This is the money paid by litigants and subsequently paid out to the beneficiaries. Sometime last year we discovered and suspected that there has been some misappropriation of these funds. We then engaged internal auditors to assess this with an urgent audit.
They then discovered that in fact there has been some misappropriation,” Mphetlhe told the PAC. In the last PAC appearance, Mphetlhe said they had indicated that the Industrial Court would make a re-advertisement so that beneficiaries could finally get their money but a recent development, which shows that funds have been stolen, forced them to halt everything. “We then realised that it couldn’t make any sense because the whole process involves informing people that we have their money as expected they should then come and claim it,” he said. Mphetlhe added that the re-advertisement process entails calling people to bring the necessary documents so that the court could start processing their payments. “When we realised that we have this problem. We stopped re-advertising because we also did not know the magnitude of the problem.
It would not actually make sense to re-advertise without any knowledge and whether the names we are re-advertising form the subject matter of this investigation,” she added. Mphetlhe pointed out that as it stands, even if people brought their documents for payments, processing their money forms part of the misappropriation. She said they have since reported the matter to the police and it is currently under investigation. “We have identified a culprit in our office.
A report is there to show that there has been some misappropriation,” she said. PAC vice-chairman Mephato Reatile told Mphetlhe that they should have clearly informed the committee from the onset about the development. He said by doing that the Industrial Court could have avoided questions as to why they have held on to the money for so long without paying it out to beneficiaries. He said the committee cannot refuse but it would gladly allow them to go ahead with the investigation and find out the root of the problem. Reatile advised Mphetlhe to make sure that the issue of misappropriation of funds is solved and the Industrial Court should involve the police on the matter.