The Pretoria specialised commercial crimes court has this week sentenced an accounting clerk, who was employed by Amka Products, after being found guilty of stealing R4m over a period of time.
The former clerk, Debbie Buitendag (40), was sentenced to two years imprisonment this Wednesday, after being found guilty of 132 counts of fraud. However, she will be eligible for parole (correctional supervision) after serving only 4 months of her sentence.
According to the prosecutor the presiding magistrate was lenient and did not sentence her to long-term imprisonment as it would affect her children, since she was their primary caregiver. The court said that Debbie would have been sentenced to 15 years imprisonment had she not been the primary caregiver of her children.
“Therefore, a sentence of two years imprisonment in terms of section 276 (1)(i) of the Criminal Procedure Act will have the least impact on the children,” National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson, Lumka Mahanjana, said. Persons sentenced under this section must serve at least one sixth of their sentence before they may be considered for placement under correctional supervision.
Debbie was employed by Amka Products (Pty) Ltd in Sunderland Ridge and her duties were believed to be paying the Tshwane Council’s bills and making purchases for the ‘Black Like Me’ section of the company, amongst others. According to evidence led, Debbie changed the banking details of her employer’s supplier, Holistics Remedies (Pty) Ltd, a company that used to do business with Amka Products (Pty) Ltd, replacing them with her own banking account details of Standard Bank and forming her own company. Over a period of about 4 years, from May 2017 to February 2021, Debbie made payments of more than R4m to her company that had her own banking details. Debbie’s criminal act was only discovered after the company’s auditors picked up the illegal transactions, whilst carrying out an audit for the company.
Debbie was arrested in March last year and was released on R500 bail and in court she pleaded guilty to all the charges brought before her. Debbie told the court that she used the money to buy various items including household appliances and a luxury car for her husband.
Mohammed Osman, formely of Lydenberg, the accounting officer at Amka Products, testified in court that had the company not done an audit of the books, the company might not have picked up the theft because of the planning Debbie carried out in committing the crimes over a period of time.
Debbie’s legal representative pleaded to the court to be lenient as she admitted to her guilt and was the primary caregiver of her two children. Her lawyer asked the court to impose correctional supervision instead of imprisonment.
However, prosecutor Leletu Jobela- Ramahlala argued that Debbie deserved to go to prison and asked the court to impose a sentence of eight years imprisonment. Leletuto emphasized that the court needs to send a strong message that crime such as fraud negatively affects businesses.
