Former Nelson Mandela Bay Admin Clerk Stephanie Reeners pleads guilty to over 450 counts of fraud

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A case against former Nelson Mandela Bay Administration Clerk Stephanie Reeners who pleaded guilty to 451 counts of fraud has been postponed to May 4th for sentencing.

National Prosecution Authority Spokesperson in the area Anelisa Ngcakani said that the 48 years old Reeners has allegedly committed fraudulent activities that saw the municipality losing a little over R 640 000 in between February 2012 and November 2017 at the time when she was serving her term as clerk in the municipalities Central Information Centre (CIC).

It is said that she volunteered to perform some of the duties of the CIC Assistant which included submission of building plans to the Building Inspectorate Division of the municipality.

These duties included quality checking the building plans which were submitted to the Building Inspectorate by Architects and Draughts persons and write out tax invoices, submit one copy of the invoice to the Treasury division of the municipality and hand over another copy to the clients for payment.

“Reeners pleaded guilty to receiving payments directly from clients. She further pleaded guilty to attaching fictitious payment receipts to the tax invoices and in so doing gave the impression to the Building Inspectorate that the cashiers at the Treasury division had received the payments. She never handed over the money to the Treasury division but instead used it for personal use.”

Ngcakani also added that Reeners also pleaded guilty to three counts of forgery which she committed in November 2017.

She allegedly used information on her supervisor’s salary advice to create three false salary advices in her name.

She made an appearance at the Port Elizabeth Specialised Commercial Crimes Court where the court accepted her guilty plea and found her guilty on 224 counts of fraud and 227 of forgery.