Two North West Department of Education employees appeared in the Rustenburg Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday to face fraud, forgery, and uttering charges.
The pair, 46-year-old Morwesi Margareth Mokone, and 54-year-old Mankwane Suzan Raleru, were arrested by Rustenburg-based Serious Commercial Crime Investigation members following allegations of submitting fraudulent matric certificates when applying for their positions.
Allegations of fraudulent matric certificates
Raleru was hired as an Early Childhood Development Fieldworker at the Kgetleng River APO in August 2008.
According to North West Hawks spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Tinyiko Mathebula, Raleru applied for the position after seeing an advertisement for the post. She submitted a fraudulent matric certificate with the claims that she obtained the qualification in 1992.
“Investigation revealed that the accused did write matric, but never passed it,” said Mathebula.
In a separate incident, Mokone applied for an administration assistant position at the Kana Primary School based in Rustenburg in March 2011.
She was subsequently hired after using a forged matric certificate in her application, which she claimed she had obtained in 1998.
“Upon conducting an investigation, it was revealed that the accused never sat for matric exams,” said Mathebula.
The pair were paid over R4 million in salaries by the department after committing fraud.
Raleru received over R2.3 million in salaries while Mokone received over R2.2 million.
The duo has been granted R10,000 bail each.
Both their cases were postponed to 14 November for further investigations.
Head of Hawks in the North West Major General Patrick Mbotho, and the Director of Public Prosecutions in North West, Dr Rachel Makhari, commended the investigation and prosecution team’s work in ensuring the accused are brought to justice.
11 arrested for fake matric certificates
Mokone and Raleru were not the first pair to commit matric certificate fraud.
The Department of Education has previously acknowledged that it is aware of the scams of selling and producing fake matric certificates.
At the beginning of the year, 11 suspects were apprehended for selling fraudulent certificates.
The first two suspects were arrested in Burgersfort in Limpopo on 27 October 2023. The second suspect, also arrested in the same area, was nabbed in Pretoria in November, three on 20 November, and the remaining five on 13 December 2023.
Education quality assurance body Umalusi asked employers to verify the qualifications of prospective and current employees as more cases of fake certificates were exposed.
“Since the state of readiness media briefing held on 13 October 2013, we informed the public about the safeguards implemented to ensure the authenticity and credibility of Umalusi certificates,” said CEO Dr Mafu Rakometsi, at the time.
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