By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Photo Credit: Delwyn Verasamy.
Former Gauteng bookkeeper Lindelani Gumede has been sentenced to at least 135 years for all 32 counts of fraud.
Gumede was sentenced at the Johannesburg Specialized Commercial Crimes Court on Thursday.
Gumede was found guilty on 32 counts of theft for stealing over R11m by creating and submitting applications for employees on the Covid-19 Ters system, on behalf of their employers, in the form of Comma-Separated Values (CSV) files.
Gumede used the details of employees of companies for which he did bookkeeping.
The companies included Country Pies, LPG Clotilda (Pty) Ltd, Odonus Investments (Pty) Ltd and La Mela (Pty) Ltd, which are all said to have never submitted applications for temporary relief funds to the UIF.
Gumede is expected to spend up to 20 years in jail as some of his sentences were ordered to run simultaneously.
Before sentencing, Senior State Advocate Frans Mhlongo pleaded with the court not to deviate from imposing the minimum prescribed sentence.
The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) applauded the investigating officer, Warrant Officer, Thamsanqa Kraai and Advocate Mhlongo for “securing a sentence that serves to teach the public that those days of abusing and misappropriating public coffers are over”.