Cape Town - The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) has slapped eight accused in an alleged multi-million rand housing fraud with charges of fraud, theft and forgery.
Eight people, including two directors of The Construction Company (TCC), Asif Khan and Abdul Karrim Khan, will face the charges when they are finalised at the next court appearance on 8 September.
The six others included four employees of the TCC, Uwais Khan, Irfaan Khan, Craig Kannemeyer, Abdulatief Abrahams and two City of Cape Town employees, Adam Majiet and Alistair Stanbul.
During the previous court appearance, the court heard that the charge sheet was still in draft form as it was still awaiting approval from senior NPA officials.
Counsel for the State, Advocate Esmeralda Johnson, also requested that the accused, Craig Kannemeyer, who was said to be currently overseas, be instructed to be in court on 8 September.
The charges are related to term tender 243Q awarded to TCC for the repairs, maintenance and upgrades to various City of Cape Town-owned buildings.
Under a term tender, which normally takes about two to three months to award, the successful bidder can be given additional small projects not exceeding R2 million each during the contract period, without the City having to advertise for a tender again.
The period of the award was from 25 January 2018 to 25 January 2021, with a value cap of R2 million.
Crime activist Hanif Loonat blew the lid off the alleged fraud in June 2020 and asked the City to launch a forensic investigation.
It's the state's case that the employees of TCC with the knowledge of the directors allegedly supplied false invoices to the City and allegedly misrepresented some of the work they charged for as being completely finalised.
Regarding one of the provisional charges of fraud, it was alleged that invoices were submitted to the City, purporting to be from a particular company for scaffolding work.
It's alleged that the quotations were not obtained from the company but were rather forged.
In another instance, it's alleged in the provisional charge sheet that quotations were obtained from a company, Eaglets Electrical, which did not exist.
In one project at Solum Flats, which involved electrical works, it was alleged that the company and service provider agreed to split services into parts, interfering with the City's supply chain management policy.
A date for the regional court hearing would be set on 8 September when the charge sheet was expected to be made final.
Majiet and Stanbul allegedly allowed the invoices to be authorised, even though they knew the work was not completed.
In March 2023, police conducted a search and seizure operation at the offices of Mayco Member for Human Settlements, Malusi Booi, as part of their investigation into allegations of fraud related to housing tenders.
A group of Cape Coloured Congress supporters held a peaceful protest outside the court on Friday demanding that the City take action to end corruption.
The case was postponed to 8 September for the finalisation of the charge sheet.
A date for the Regional Court hearing would also be set then.