Ex-MTN accountant pleads not guilty to defrauding the company of R53m

Former MTN staffer identified as Branden Ruth Moshabane has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud to the tune of R53 million. 
 
Moshabane appeared at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s court in Ekurhuleni on Wednesday as she faced several charges related to fraud. 
 
It has come to the attention of BusinessTech SA that the former employee allegedly transferred money from two bank accounts belonging to the mobile telecoms operator. 
 
SowetanLIVE reports that the accountant allegedly stole R53m from her employer by creating fake vendors and paying them but has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud. 

It is reported that Moshabane is now facing 90 counts of fraud totalling R53,7m and her legal representative, Carel Van Heerden told the court that her client would make admissions in terms of Section 220 of the Criminal Procedure Act. 
 
The 48-year-old admitted that the Absa and Standard bank accounts from which she allegedly stole the money belong to the South African telecoms giant. 
 
“The accounts mentioned above do not belong to any of the companies or service providers mentioned in the preamble of the charge sheet but to me. I admit that the account numbers mentioned above were not loaded in the vendor account on the MTN SA master vendor database,” she said in the document read in court. 
 
Furthermore, the former worker also confirmed that the bank statements printed from these two bank accounts are “true, genuine, and correct” but she is yet to explain in court how the funds found their way into her personal bank account. 
 
The daily publication posted that the accountant fraudulently transferred money from MTN bank accounts into her personal account between July 2015 and April 2017. 
 
Resulting of her alleged actions, Standard Bank reached out to MTN after noting strange transactions made into Moshabane’s personal account.  
 
It is reported that she was arrested in 2017 and is currently out on bail and the state proceeded to attach five houses including seven vehicles that she had bought with the alleged stolen money.  
 
Moshabane’s bank accounts were also frozen and has conceded to the court, that the two FNB bank accounts which received payment funds from MTN belonged to her and not the service providers as she had claimed. 
 
Main Image: MTN/ITNewsAfrica