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Offender Patrick Masoka who was employed as a Project Manager in the Department of Land Affairs and Rural Development was sentenced to a 10 year prison term at Pietermaritzburg Regional Court recently for stealing a farm and livestock belonging to the Shabalala clan in Ladysmith KZN.

Masoka, then a senior official in the land and claims branch of the Department of Land Affairs and Rural Development was found to have operated criminally by the SIU Forensic Investigators who were ceased with the proclamation investigating how land affairs were handled.

Adv Andy Mothibi; the head of the SIU says that citizens trust public servants to execute their fiduciary duties to them (citizens) with distinction so that quality service delivery flow to communities swiftly.  Citizens in need of government services suffer immensely when some public servants double up as criminals during the course of their employment in government departments.   Adv Mothibi says that the SIU is poised to strike heavily on government officials found stealing government resources.

Adv Mothibi urged the SIU Forensic Investigators to tripple their efforts working collaboratively with other crime busting entities in the criminal justice system to ensure that offenders who steal from society are brought to book promptly so that they can be removed from the system before depleting government resources to zero.

Adv Mothibi welcomed the conviction and the severe 10 year sentence meted out to Patrick Masoka.  ‘This sentence should and will definitely serve as a serious deterrent to would be thieves in the public service'.

Dubious public servants; state owned entities officials and the private sector officials who think devising devious schemes to defraud government and the society, is the right thing to do’, must know that there will be no place to hide when we investigate their malfeasance as the SIU' says Adv Mothibi.

The discomfort, unwarranted, but for, his greed; will dawn to Masoka that not only are his rights to freedom limited; but also, those of his next of kin to have access to him all the time; are limited as well.  Masoka wronged the society by stealing.  He also wronged his family and deprived them of the material support he provided when he was employed.

Issued by Government Communication and Information System