POLOKWANE – The case of former Polokwane businessman, Jacques Nell will be heard again at the Mankweng regional court on Tuesday.
Nell was arrested by the Hawks in February on charges of defrauding Absa bank with nearly R10 million, which is a schedule five offense as described in the Criminal Procedures Act no 51 of 1977.
Nell allegedly committed fraud by supplying Absa with false tax invoices to secure financing for two new DocuTech machines. He is said to have allegedly misled the bank to secure finance for the machines, which resulted in the potential loss of some R9 million after Nell’s company, Data Master Office Automation CC, was voluntarily liquidated. The charge sheet shows the actual loss incurred by Absa was R1,7 million. Nell was the sole member of Data Master Office Automation CC.
Nell allegedly applied for asset finance for two new Xerox DocuTech machines to Absa in March 2009 under two account numbers for the amounts of R4,3 million and R3,1 million. The deposits were R850 000 and R638 000 respectively for these machines. The application was approved by Absa. According to a source in the Hawks’ investigation team, the irregularities were uncovered during an investigation by the Hawks into government tenders that were awarded in an alleged irregular, fraudulent or corrupt manner in various departments put under administration during December 2011.
The Hawks approached Absa with information gathered during their investigations, and Absa decided to open two cases of fraud against Nell.
It is alleged that Data Master already bought the above mentioned DocuTech machines in 2003 and 2006 from Bytes Document Solutions “Xerox”, the company that holds the sole distribution rights for Xerox machines in South Africa.
Bytes Document Solutions allegedly confirmed that the amounts of just over R4 million and nearly R3 million were deposited into their bank account on March 3, 2009 in lieu of payment of Data Master’s debt to them.
He allegedly produced fake tax receipts and wanted to obtain funding to buy office equipment pretending it was new, while it had been financed before.
Nell’s initial application for bail in the Polokwane magistrate’s court was refused by magistrate Janine Ungerer, as he was seen as a flight risk. An attempt to get bail in the Polokwane High Court also failed, but an application lodged in the Gauteng High court was approved by judge George Avvakoumides on March 26.
