OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria | Tuesday
A GROUP of Pretoria businessmen accused of selling more than 700 dud computers to the Mpumalanga government could lose the plush mansions they bought with the proceeds of the dirty deal.
Police confirmed that the Asset Forfeiture Unit has been brought on board to seize the properties in Pretoria and Plettenburg Bay.
The five suspects, who are all linked to Keystone Information Systems, are facing charges of fraud, violation of copyright and counterfeiting.
Their clients included Mpumalanga’s department of education, which got 347 computers, the department of health, which got 400 computers, and the department of finance, which got five laptop computers.
Mpumalangas health department information technology director Craig Williams has since been suspended and faces possible fraud charges. All three departments have refused to say how much they paid to Keystone.
The company allegedly disguised cheap low powered computers as more expensive Xylo machines manufactured by Siltek.
“They also appear to have loaded the computers with illegally pirated Microsoft software programmes. The government paid the full price for the programmes,” said police.
Mpumalanga officials blew the whistle on the alleged scam when their computers refused to work properly.
Siltek and Microsoft representatives accompanied police when police raided Keystone offices in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. Both are instituting civil action against Keystone’s directors.
Police are meanwhile examining all computers supplied to government by Keystone, including shipments to the national labour department in Pretoria, to ensure that no additional fraud occurred.
Microsoft spokesman Mark Reynolds said that half the computers in South Africa operated on pirated software, costing Microsoft at least R600m per year.
South Africa’s estimated 47% software piracy rate was way above the international average of 36%, he said. – African Eye News Service