Bail granted for alleged SASSA fraudster

EASTERN CAPE – East London Magistrate’s court granted Thobile Maxwell Kamte (38) the director of Max KMT Trading R2000-00 bail on 19 September 2022. This is subsequent to his arrest by East London based Serious Corruption Investigation team of the Hawks on the very same day for allegations of fraud.

It is alleged that on 1 December 2014, the Project Manager at South African Social Security Agency (SASSA) submitted a request for construction of local offices at Kareedouw, Port St Johns, Mount Fletcher, Sterkspruit and Ntabankulu. A tender was later advertised where suppliers were invited to submit quotations.

The supplier Max KMT Trading as represented by its Director Kamte is alleged to have submitted quotations for the tender and was subsequently appointed to construct the walls of some of the offices. An invoice to the value of more than R490 000-00 is reported to have been submitted by the supplier and payment was effected. It was later established that the supplier was not registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) even though the supplier submitted a CIDB certificate during the submission of tender documents. The certificate was later found to be fraudulent.

A case of fraud was reported to the East London based Serious Corruption Investigation team of the Hawks for probing hence the arrest of Kamte on 19 September 2022. He was released on R2000-00 bail and the matter is remanded to 26 September for Regional court date.

Source: South African Police Service