Two former Mossel Bay municipal employees were visibly shocked on Friday when they were sentenced to an effective three years imprisonment each on 60 fraud-related charges amounting to R123 000.
Megan Abdul and Siphokazi Majolla, both in their thirties, were earlier found guilty of changing the status of burials from a standard burial to an indigent burial or a cremation.
The duo were also involved in other irregularities for a period of nearly two years between July 2016 and April 2018.
Their modus operandi was to cancel a specific transaction following a reservation of a grave, without the funeral undertaker being aware of it.
Abdul and Majolla would then tell the admin staff at the municipality that people paid too much for a burial but would pocket the difference in cash for themselves.
During sentencing, the Magistrate described fraud within municipalities as a cancer in South African society.
Abdul and Majolla were sentenced to five years' direct imprisonment of which two years were suspended for a period of five years.
