A businessman has been convicted of defrauding the Overstrand Municipality of about R3m by manipulating the tender system.
|||Cape Town -
A Hermanus man has been convicted of defrauding the Overstrand Municipality of about R3 million after he submitted false quotations to secure tenders.
Bellville Commercial Crimes Court magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg convicted Hermanus Mostert of 285 counts of fraud after finding that he manipulated the tender system in order to secure the deals.
Mostert, who owned HM Irrigation, was responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the equipment and machinery at the Hermanus Sewerage Plant and Preekstoel Water Purification Works between 2004 and 2009.
During that time, he submitted 285 quotations.
When the municipality identified a job that had to go out to tender, Mostert submitted genuine quotations in his name and business, as well as false quotations with the names of his friends and other people he knew.
In order to falsify the quotations, he used the names, business letterheads and scanned signatures of his friends that he had on his computer.
He ensured that his quotations were the lowest, to guarantee that he received the tender.
Sonnenberg acquitted Mostert of 43 counts of tax fraud valued at more than R500 000.
On Tuesday, prosecutor Derrick Vogel called mechanical engineer Gordon Elliot to testify in aggravation of sentence. Elliot told the court the municipality had requested that he inspect the two plants in 2009.
Elliot found that the equipment at the sites was in a poor condition and not maintained.
In mitigation of sentence, Mostert told the court he serviced the equipment once a year and that workers were also employed by the municipality for this purpose.
“Most of those machines were older than 20 years and most needed to be replaced due to metal fatigue,” he said.
Mostert is due to be sentenced on May 28.
jade.otto@inl.co.za
Cape Argus