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Probe into petrol card scam runs out of gas

THE National Intelligence Agency blew the whistle on an alleged petrol card fraud scam in a Free State municipality a year ago - with seemingly no results.

The scam involved allocating petrol cards to scrapped vehicles.

Sowetan is in possession of a letter from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) to Free State MEC for cooperative governance and human settlements Zwane Msebenzi and the manager of Ngwathe municipality, a Mr Mahlatsi.

The letter, dated August 2009, says the NIA conducted an investigation into the irregular use of petrol cards in the Ngwathe municipality.

The investigation found that petrol cards were allocated to six scrapped cars. The cars were registered as clients at a local petrol station in Koppies.

"According to the records, most of the cars are not running but cards allocated to them are being used," wrote NIA Free State provincial head N Potgieter.

  • One car used R21,000 worth of petrol in the space of 11 days. This car was later identified to be a tractor, the report says.
  • Another car was found to be filling up with petrol every 15km.
  • Two other cars used R14,000 and R28,000 worth of petrol during June 2009 alone.

Sowetan understands from a reliable source that while the municipal manager did lay charges of fraud at Koppies police station, the case has since been stalled.

The mayor of the Ngwathe municipality, Max Moshodi, was not available for comment because the council did not answer its phone.

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