A former South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) employee cried bitterly when the Johannesburg Regional Court found her on Tuesday guilty of defrauding the public broadcaster almost R1-million.
Magistrate Steff Bezuidenhout remanded Sheila Dlikilili, a former television producer at the SABC, in custody until September 30 when the court will hear argument on mitigation and possibly sentence her.
Dlikilili was convicted on 36 counts of fraud.
During 1993 and 1994 she, with the assistance of others, ”recklessly squandered the SABC’s money”, the court heard.
The court noted that, because of numerous changes of prosecutors and defence lawyers, the trial has so far taken six years.
Bezuidenhout said an investigation was launched after an SABC employee reported to management a conversation that had been overheard in a bank.
Four types of fraud were uncovered, with Dlikilili being arrested and charged, and many of the witnesses who were involved in the fraud were told in court that if all questions were satisfactorily answered, they would be granted indemnity from prosecution at the end of the trial.
The four ”areas” of fraud, divided into four different groups of charges, included falsely authorising payments to production houses run by longtime friends and by her brother when the work had not been done as claimed.
There were no master tapes to substantiate the invoices and some of the footage viewed by the court ”was so amateurish that it appears as if it was made with home video camera”, the magistrate said.
The evidence of three people who were involved in the four production houses was that the work was not done and the money was shared.
One of those who testified against Dlikilili was her former lover Harold Legodi Dlikilili, a former soccer player.
She was involved in a divorce at the time of the crimes, the court heard.
Legodi not only benefited from the inflated and fabricated service invoices, but was also showered with gifts and gift vouchers.
She obtained the gift vouchers with SABC money after falsely pretending that the vouchers would be handed over to viewers as prizes for competitions on music programmes.
Legodi, who handed back to the SABC what he had received, testified that Dlikilili even used the vouchers to buy herself a R25 000 lounge suite.
Four of those who won prizes were Dlikilili’s friends — one of them being her bridesmaid.
”It is just not possible that of all the millions of TV viewers in this country, four who won prizes were associated with the accused.”
Winning postcards appeared not to have gone through the post, but to have had ”old stamps” affixed to them.
Other charges related to fake travel and expenditure claims — two for Dlikilili and the rest for other people.
The court found on Tuesday that the invoices were similar to a blank invoice book found in her office. — Sapa