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INLSA<\/p>\n
Fraud accused Jabulani Mabaso at the Pietermaritzburg High Court. Picture: Shan Pillay<\/p>\n
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Durban – Was businessman Jabulani Mabaso through his company, Indiza Infrastructure Solutions, allowed to make a profit from the stationery he had supplied to the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department or not? <\/p>\n
This was the question posed by advocate Willie Vermeulen SC during argument in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Monday. <\/p>\n
Vermeulen has asked Acting Judge Kobus Booysens to discharge his clients, Mabaso, and Indiza – which was being represented by Mabaso – on charges of defrauding the department of R200 million between 2005 and 2007. <\/p>\n
At the time, Mabaso had entered into a \u201cservice-level agreement\u201d with the department to supply stationery to schools. <\/p>\n
While the State alleges that he was only supposed to have been paid a management fee for his services, Vermeulen argued that he was entitled to make a profit. <\/p>\n
He said that the State had not called any witnesses from the department to explain the agreement or how payment had been made to Indiza. <\/p>\n
There was also no evidence on what the terms of the agreement were. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe State relies on this non-descript agreement\u2026 this leaves a gap so wide that a successful prosecution is highly unlikely,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
An accountant, Paul de Villiers, who drew up financial statements for another of Mabaso\u2019s companies, had testified that he knew that Indiza was entitled to make a profit. <\/p>\n
De Villiers told the court that he could not see why a profit could not be made because there were sizeable overheads to be met. <\/p>\n
Had Indiza supplied stationery at cost, it would have made a loss and become bankrupt. <\/p>\n
Vermeulen said Mabaso was investigated after it was alleged that he had \u201can improper relationship\u201d with officials from the committee which recommended that his company be awarded a tender to supply schools with stationery, and because of allegations that he had made an excessive profit. <\/p>\n
Vermeulen added that the latter allegation was based largely on Mabaso\u2019s agreement with the department being read wrongly. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
It was clear from the State witnesses that, as a matter of practice, suppliers\u2019 invoices were not submitted and the department had not asked for them. <\/p>\n
The State is to argue the case tomorrow. <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" INLSA Fraud accused Jabulani Mabaso at the Pietermaritzburg High Court. Picture: Shan Pillay Durban – Was businessman Jabulani Mabaso through his company, Indiza Infrastructure Solutions, allowed to make a profit from the stationery he had supplied to the KwaZulu-Natal Education Department or not? This was the question posed by advocate Willie Vermeulen SC during argument […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-18287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18287\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}