Former Home Affairs official Dawn Celeste Pieterson, 45, has been convicted of nine counts of fraud relating to a funeral cover scheme.
Pieterson, who worked at the department’s Calvinia branch in the Northern Cape, appeared before the local magistrate’s court, where she was found guilty of nine fraud charges, said provincial Hawks spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Tebogo Thebe in a statement.
Thebe said Pieterson used the National Population Register to take out funeral policies and listed herself as the beneficiary.
Conviction ‘a step forward’ in rooting out corruption
She then forged the deaths of the people whose identities she stole by falsely issuing notices of death to submit claims.
“The system registered the affected persons as deceased, resulting in a plethora of problems in the victims’ day-to-day lives,” said Thebe.
Pieterson will return to court on January 26 for sentencing.
Acting provincial head of the Hawks, Brigadier Prince Mashimbye, welcomed the conviction and commended the investigating team.
Meanwhile, Home Affairs Minister Dr. Leon Schreiber hailed the conviction as “another step forward” in the department’s efforts to root out corruption.
Schreiber said the department’s collaboration with law enforcement had led to nine convictions and the dismissal of 37 officials since July last year.
He added that Pieterson’s modus operandi highlighted the need to digitise the department’s systems.
“By fully automating and digitalising all departmental processes, as we are doing through the Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) for visas and through Digital ID for civics services, we will eliminate the space for human discretion and interference exploited by criminals like Pieterson,” he said in a statement.
Schreiber reiterated the department’s commitment to tackling corruption.
“We are absolutely determined to both put criminal officials behind bars, while simultaneously using technology to close the loopholes they exploit. This is how we can defeat the scourge of corruption once and for all,” said the minister.
