A FORMER administrative clerk of a Walvis Bay consumer goods wholesaler has been convicted of 18 counts of fraud in connection with a scam in which cigarettes worth N$1,6 million were stolen from her erstwhile employer.
The verdict in which Venecia Ann Koning was pronounced guilty of 18 fraud charges was delivered in the Windhoek High Court on Thursday last week – almost six years after Koning’s trial started before judge Alfred Siboleka.
Koning (46) and an ex-colleague, Dawid Martin Bezuidenhout (51), denied guilt on a total of 40 charges when their trial started in November 2011.
Bezuidenhout was acquitted on Thursday.
In the charges on which Koning and Bezuidenhout stood trial, the prosecution alleged that during the time they were employed by wholesaler Indo Atlantic at Walvis Bay, they defrauded the company of about N$2,5 million through inflating the amount of cigarettes delivered to some coastal shops that were customers of the company, or by issuing invoices to shops for cigarettes never delivered to them.
Bezuidenhout was employed as a sales representative, while Koning worked as an administrative assistant at the company.
The fraud was alleged to have been committed between October 2006 and August 2007.
In respect of the charges against Bezuidenhout, judge Siboleka found that delivery documents showed he delivered the correct quantities of cigarettes to customers of the wholesaler.
Bezuidenhout told the court that when he received cash payments from shops for cigarettes delivered to them, he handed the money over to a colleague who was supposed to bank it. That colleague was one of the state witnesses during the trial.
With judge Siboleka finding that the evidence showed she did not always write out invoices for money handed to her, he said in light of the untrustworthiness of her evidence, Bezuidenhout had to be given the benefit of the doubt on the charges he was facing.
According to other evidence before the court, Koning was in control of stock kept in the warehouse where cigarettes were stored, and stock in the delivery vehicle used by Bezuidenhout, judge Siboleka recounted. She was also responsible for generating invoices that had to reflect deliveries made to customers, and payments that had to be made for delivered goods.
The 18 charges on which Koning was found guilty related to invoices issued to customers for cigarettes that they said they never received. Koning admitted that she prepared all of those invoices, but insisted she must have done that on the basis of orders placed by the customers, the judge noted.
With respect to those charges, judge Siboleka indicated, he was satisfied that it had been proven Koning committed fraud.
The 18 charges involved alleged fake sales of cigarettes worth N$1,6 million.
Koning’s bail was cancelled after she was convicted. She has to appear in court again for a pre-sentencing hearing on 20 September.
State advocate Simba Nduna is prosecuting. Defence lawyers Boris Isaacks and Titus Ipumbu, both instructed by the Directorate of Legal Aid, have been representing Bezuidenhout and Koning respectively.
