GEORGE NEWS - A former senior financial clerk at South African Breweries (SAB), Queraysha Naidoo (38), received a five-year suspended sentence for fraud in the George Regional Court on Monday 26 March.
She had pleaded guilty to 336 counts of fraud before Magistrate Marius Fourie in February this year. Naidoo, who now lives in Port Elizabeth, was caught red-handed cooking the books in May 2015.
Manipulating wages
Since February 2013 Naidoo, who was responsible for the data capturing of each employee as well as collecting and handling wage payments, manipulated the wage sheets by adding fictitious workers to the list. This enabled her to collect and pocket the extra wages.
Over two years she collected a total amount of R257 765, 99.
One of the SAB farm managers, George Blackburn, noticed some irregularities on the printout of payments made to workers between 20 and 27 May. When he questioned Naidoo about this, she explained she was training a temporary worker and showing her how to add workers onto the system.
Early in June, Blackburn again noticed irregularities with the wages when he saw more names on the wage sheet than there were employees for that week.
This led to the discovery of Naidoo's fraud.
The investigation was completed in 2017 and she was charged with fraud in September. She has since paid back all the money.
The sentence
Naidoo was handed down a sentence of three years correctional supervision and five years imprisonment suspended for four years. She was represented by Winston Jansen from Nico Smit Attorneys. Candice Simon represented the state.
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