A detailed report obtained by African Times has revealed how the R37 million that was stolen from the ABSA bank account of the ANC run KwaDukuza Local Municipality in KwaZulu-Natal early this year was distributed to 15 accounts belonging to companies and individuals, some with political links.

One of the beneficiaries is alleged to be a young man employee of the wife of one of the senior political office bearers in the looted municipality.

The young man became instantly rich as almost a million rand was deposited to his Capitec Bank account. However, he could not enjoy the loot as it was immediately frozen and returned to the municipality after it obtained a court order from the Durban High Court.

The KwaDukuza Local Municipality failed to recover R4, 4 million that was deposited to an FNB account of a company called Black Square Distributors. The money was withdrawn the moment it was received, making it difficult to freeze.

The municipality has filed an urgent court application to have the company that got the loot liquidated and the matter is yet to be heard in court.

The KwaDukuza Local Municipality claimed that it was alerted about the fraud by the ABSA bank and the account was then suspended to prevent further movement of funds. It added that a case of fraud was opened on the day of the incident.

“It is suspected that an individual/s acted in [a] manner intended to interfere with the municipality’s banking profiles and constitute a breach of the financial system, thereby infiltrating the municipal primary bank account,” the municipality said a few days after the incident.