A former payroll supervisor at the Newcastle municipality had to pay back R3.1m and was sentenced to eight years effective imprisonment after she defrauded her employer by using ‘ghost’ employees to create false salaries.

According to a statement by the Hawks, Deidre van Rooyen (52) handled the day-to-day operations of the wages office. This included paying salaries from the municipality’s bank account.

Hawks spokesperson Colonel Philani Nkwalase explains that their National Clean Audit Task Team did an extensive investigation regarding the manipulation of the salary and bank system.

“She received unauthorised payments in excess of her regular salary. Further investigation linked her banking information to four additional salary profiles of previous employees who left the company. 88 false salaries totalling more than R3m that were manufactured during an eight-year period from February 2012 to June 2020.” Nkwalase says.

Van Rooyen was arrested on October 22, 2020, and appeared in court the same day where she was released on R50 000 bail.

She pleaded guilty to all 88 counts of fraud in May last year.

“She forfeited her pension to the municipality and repaid the balance of the amount in full by other financial means,” Nkwalase says.

The Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Durban sentenced her to 10 years in prison, two years of which were suspended for five years with strict terms.