Another suspect appears in court for Free State Health department bogus tender

Another suspect in the Free State health department’s tender fraud is expected to appear before the Bloemfontein Magistrates’ Court today.

Hawks spokesperson captain Christopher Singo said that the 41-year-old suspect was arrested on Tuesday, March 8 for allegations of fraud.

“His arrests originates from an incident which took place during the period of January 2021 where one of the accused who introduced himself as Mosia approached the victim and promised her that he can arrange a tender to be allocated to her from the department,” said Singo.

“The accused demanded that 10% of the value of the tender to be paid to him in advance before the tender would be allocated,” he said.

It is further alleged that the total value of the bogus tender was estimated to be R720 000 and the accused demanded that the amount of R72 000 be paid to him.

“The victim then paid the amount of R72 000 to the accused,” Singo said.

“During a further meeting with the accused while discussing the contract the suspects at that time arrived and pretended to be police officials who then accused the victim of committing corruption.

“They then demanded money from the victim so that they cannot arrest her. The victim then paid the total amount of R650 000 to them because she was afraid of being arrested.

As a result of the misrepresentations the victim was prejudiced and suffered a total loss of R722 000,” he added.

The matter was then reported to the Hawks for further investigation which culminated to the arrest of the suspect and the other two accused, Liabeng Icknatia Hoffman (43) and Siza Isaac Mokwena (43) who were arrested in September last year.