Mpumalanga woman, Ntombelanga Pretty Labane, will return to court in March next year to answer charges of fraud after she earned more than R1.2 million working as a school teacher.
Allegations are that Labane does not have matric, although she holds a Bachelor of Education (B-ED) degree.
She allegedly used a fraudulent matric certificate to apply at the Walter Sisulu University, where she obtained her degree.
Responding to a query by IOL, Mpumalanga provincial spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Monica Nyuswa said the case against Labane was postponed to March for trial.
Labane, who is not in custody, made several court appearances before the Amersfoort Magistrate’s Court in Mpumalanga, following her arrest by the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, also known as the Hawks, on charges of fraud.
Previously, provincial Hawks spokesperson in Mpumalanga, Lieutenant Colonel Dineo Sekgotodi, said Labane had been working as a teacher since 2016.
It is alleged that on September 1, 2016, Labane applied for a business and accounting teacher’s post at Hlelimfundo Secondary School in Amersfoort, under Mpumalanga’s Volksrust circuit.
“Labane submitted a CV, copies of a fraudulent matric certificate, a B-ED degree, and SACE (SA Council for Educators) certificates to the school principal, who informed the school management team to consider her application. They then agreed that she is suitable for the post,” said Sekgotodi.
The principal informed the School Governing Body (SGB) about the decision taken by the school management team and the SGB supported the decision.
“The management team allowed Labane to apply for the post, and she was given an application document called EDU 1 to apply for the post. SGB members and the principal signed the application forms on September 12, 2016. All relevant documents were sent to the circuit manager who signed and took them to the Department of Education’s district office at Ermelo,” said Sekgotodi.
“The application was sent to the Human Resource Persal registry section, and it was forwarded to the human resource provisioning section. After the human resource provisioning section checked it, it was forwarded to the employment section where it was captured and Labane was employed.”
Trouble started for Labane when a whistle-blower who knew that the woman did not pass matric, reported the matter to the Public Service Commission offices in Mpumalanga.
The matter was investigated by the Public Service Commission.
“After the investigations, findings and recommendations were made.
“The principal, circuit manager and the district office were asked about a fraudulent matric certificate and they reported that they did not notice that it was fraudulent as they do not have detectors to verify the validity of the documents. The Public Service Commission referred the matter to the Hawks’ Secunda-based serious commercial crime investigation (unit) for further investigation in July 2022,” said Sekgotodi.
The Hawks spokesperson clarified to IOL that Labane is not in custody, as no warrant of arrest had been issued against her.
During further investigations by the Hawks team, it was discovered that Labane does not have a Grade 12 certificate, and that she wrote matric four times - in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006.
In all her four attempts, the Hawks said Labane repeatedly failed matric.
“Labane then forged the matric certificate by putting the certificate number: 040 9517 7028 B which belong to another candidate called Nozipho Ritta Ngema. The results that were appearing on her fraudulent matric certificate were not her real results,” according to the Hawks.
Labane took her fraudulent matric certificate and applied to study at Walter Sisulu University whereby she obtained her Bachelor of Education (B-ED) degree.