Woman in trouble for violating bail conditions

A woman was remanded in custody by the Emalahleni Regional Court for failure to comply with her bail conditions pending an appeal.

This happened on Friday, July 12.

The 62-year-old Lida Potgieter was arrested and charged on 737 counts of fraud and sentenced to six years direct imprisonment on February 18, 2015.

She was subsequently released on bail of R10 000 after she appealed against the judgement.

It is alleged that Potgieter violated her bail conditions resulting in a warrant for her arrest being issued culminating in her arrest.

The case has been postponed to July 26 for a formal bail application.

It is alleged that between January 2004 and July 2009, Potgieter was a manager of the Emalahleni Local Municipality internal sports club.

“Employees of the municipality contributed member fees, deducted from their salaries. When contributions reached a substantial amount, Potgieter started an in-house lending scheme which motivated the employees to make further investments in the hope of increasing their earnings,” said Captain Dineo Sekgotodi, Mpumalanga Hawks spokesperson.

The scheme collapsed after Potgieter transferred just over R4-million into her personal account.

The Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation Unit was entrusted with the probe after a case was registered during 2015.

“Our records show that Ms Potgieter was not a council employee but a member or representative of a sports union at that time. She was allocated an office to operate in the municipality as a union representative. It is true that she had a money lending scheme which was not within the confines of the municipality but people joined the scheme voluntarily including some municipal employees,” said municipal spokesperson Mr Lebo Mofokeng.

Mofokeng added that the municipality has nothing to do with that and wishes to distance itself from such schemes.

“People must be careful about the money lending schemes they enter into,” Mofokeng said.