At Parliament’s communications committee meeting with state-owned signal distribution company Sentech last week, Sentech chair Quraysh Patel said “fraudulent cases” amounting to R120-million had been uncovered at Sentech. This had also been reported to Communications Minister Simphiwe Nyanda. M&G/ MyBroadband
Sentech’s board was fired earlier this year after a task team appointed by Nyanda uncovered serious problems at the signal distributor. Nyanda appointed a new board in April, and Colin Hickling the board chairman was replaced by Patel.
According to Patel, one of the biggest cases of fraud, the “RentWorks debacle”, R35-million had been identified as irregular expenditure. A separate report had been drafted and reveals that Sentech signed a contract with IT finance company RentWorks Africa to lease technology.
The Sentech board was considering legal advice on whether to lay criminal charges against former board members over this contract.
Disciplinary action against former Sentech chief financial officer Mohammed Cassim has been initiated by the board.
Patel said Cassim was “clearly not a reliable person”. Cassim had failed to pay VAT; had paid invoices without contracts being in place; sent reports to the treasury without submitting them to the accounting authority for finalisation and was fined for not paying Independent Communications Authority of South Africa fees.
Source: M&G/ MyBroadband
