WESTERN CAPE – A former Municipal manager Martin Noël Pietersen (60) is due to learn his fate next year, when the George Magistrate’s Court decides his future.
Pietersen is set to be sentenced on the 30th of March 2017 following sweeping investigations by the Serious Commercial Crime Unit of the Hawks.
He was arrested in August 2013, and subsequently found guilty this December for allegedly swindling the Oudtshoorn municipality of over R2-million.
The ruling is understood to be a first of its kind in the Country and it emanated from five charges in contravention of section 173 of the Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003.
It is alleged that from October, 2010 to June, 2011, Pietersen misused his authority by arbitrarily authorising wasteful expenditure in favour of IBR Consultants, an entity he was allegedly linked to, was appointed under suspicious circumstances, without following due Supply Chain Management procedures.
National Head of the HAWKS, Lieutenant General, Mthandazo Ntlemeza expressed his elation at this revolutionary ruling. ” If corruption is left unchecked, it is capable of eroding good governance in the country, thereby rendering our hard earned democracy ineffectual and depriving people on the ground of the most basic of services. This is only the beginning, we are buoyed by this ruling and we shall continue to discharge our mandate with assurance and vigour”. He said.
Meanwhile, in keeping with the elite unit’s mandate and artistry to fight serious corruption, members from the Anticorruption Task Team of the Hawks, hosted by the City of Cape Town, with various other stakeholders in attendance, including the Public Protector’s office, observed the annual International Anti-Corruption day on the 9th of December at the Cape Town Civic Centre. Interactions with the public was the order of the day wherein they were sensitized on the importance of reporting of corruption matters.
