By ANA Reporter 
44s ago
Cape Town – An Eastern Cape supermarket trainee supervisor has been sentenced in the Mthatha Specialised Commercial Crime Court for fraud.
On Thursday, spokesperson for the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) Captain Yolisa Mgolodela said Fikile Phofana, 34, was sentenced to two years’ direct imprisonment.
She said Phofana was employed as a cashier in 2015 at a Mthatha supermarket and was promoted to trainee supervisor in January 2016, where one of his duties was to void transactions.
Mgolodela said that between January and June 2016, the store managers started realising that there was a shortage of medicine from the veterinary department and the profit was not corresponding with the stock.
She said the managers did a stock take and in the video footage they could see Phofana taking R46 000 and putting it into his wallet.
Mgolodela said a complaint was subsequently lodged with the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team to investigate.
Phofana disappeared after he heard about the pending investigation against him. However, he was arrested on September 9 last year and was released by the court on warning after he made his court appearance.
Mgolodela said that after multiple court appearances, Phofana was convicted on Tuesday, May 18 and sentenced on Wednesday.
She said the court sentenced him to three years’ imprisonment of which one year is suspended for five years provided he does not commit theft during the suspension period.
In a separate incident last week, the Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team of East London arrested Thembile Mbalo, 57, on Thursday on fraud charges.
Mgolodela said it is alleged that Mbalo, who is the director of his company Themba Cartage and Construction cc, submitted a fraudulent input VAT return claim to the SA Revenue Service on July 22, 2013 to the value of more than R233 000.
The suspect was released on a warning and the case was postponed until July 1.
African News Agency (ANA)
Credit IOL