File
The Hawks in the Eastern Cape have welcomed the six-year sentence imposed on a travel agent who defrauded the Provincial Education Department of more than R2 million.
Hawks spokesperson, Captain Yolisa Mgolodela, says 35-year-old Bathandwa Ndyamara was jailed in the East London Regional Court on Tuesday.
She said he was not given an option to pay a fine.
Mgolodela said Ndyamara has submitted quotes to the Department of Basic Education after his company, Siyawela Travelling, apparently received a request for a quotation for accommodation for educators and learners attending workshops at venues across the province.
She said the invoices from the lodges where the workshops were to be held, were submitted to the Department of Education but were not paid, “because the department detected that the request for quotes was a scam, as the department had already paid for the same order numbers.”
Mgolodela said the matter was reported to the East London-based Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation team for probing which resulted in the arrest of Ndyamara on 21 December 2021.
