Man who used SAPS petrol card for personal use sentenced

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A 43 years old SAPS fleet manager in Mthatha Eastern Cape has been sentenced to 8 years imprisonment for defrauding the police of money to an estimated amount of R 110 000.00.

Appearing at Mthatha Specialised Commercial Crimes Court, they heard how Fumanekile Gaba who was employed as the fleet manager at the SAPS Local Criminal Record Centre defrauded the government for almost a year, between September 2019 and August 2020.

He used a SAPS fuel card belonging to a vehicle that was scrapped to refill his and other paying vehicles at Qunu Service Centre.

NPA Spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said Gaba’s criminal act was discovered when SAPS noticed odd transactions from a card belonging to a scrapped vehicle.

“Internal auditing within SAPS picked up that the card was still in use even though the vehicle to which it was allocated had been boarded.  Subsequent investigations revealed that Gaba had been colluding with a petrol attendant at the filling station, and he was arrested. During trial, he pleaded not guilty.”

“However, he changed his plea to that of guilty after Senior State Advocate Mthuthuzeli Rangula led the evidence of the petrol attendant, who became the state witness in accordance with Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act. Video footage from the filling station, showing Gaba participating in the scam from his vehicle, was also submitted as evidence.”

The court was of the view that Gaba was not remorseful of his acts taking into consideration that he only changed his guilty plea after realizing amounting of evidence built against him.

He was handed 8 years imprisonment.