The Hawks continue to swoop on alleged corrupt government officials. Among the latest to be arrested is a 49-year-old official attached to the office of budget and Treasury at the Newcastle municipality, who was released on R50,000 bail after her arrest for alleged fraud.

The Hawks national clean audit task team arrested Dedre van Rooyen on October 22 and she appeared in the Durban specialised commercial crime court on the same day.

The Hawks said in a statement their preliminary investigation showed Van Rooyen had allegedly been drawing a second salary from her employer over the period February 2012 to June 2020, in addition to her regular  salary.

“During this period, Van Rooyen was responsible for payroll functions, which included the payment of salaries from the bank using Payroll System (Sage VIP).  She was one of the supervisors that oversaw the day to day running of the salaries for the municipality which suffered a prejudice of R3.1m.

“She allegedly manipulated the payroll system in order to make salary payments in respect of former employees who were no longer working at the municipality at the time of the payments. Apart from one of these payments, all other payments were paid to her personal bank account.”

Van Rooyen will be back in court on December 1 pending further investigation.

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