Education official 'not guilty'

2007-10-15 19:42

Cape Town - Former Western Cape education personnel head Mogamat Kashief Galant has been acquitted on corruption and fraud charges.

The case in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court arose from the plight of a group of contract teachers in Oudtshoorn, who received their monthly salaries up to two weeks late.

Under the payment system, their cheques were mailed to them instead of being deposited into their bank accounts.

With Galant, 45, in the dock was the teachers' site co-ordinator, Daryl Niven Damons, also 45, who was also found not guilty on similar charges.

Prosecutor Jacques Smith alleged that Damons had corruptly instigated monthly payments of R50, by each of five teachers, into Galant's bank account, in appreciation for arranging the payment of their salaries into their bank accounts, instead of through the mail.

Galant unaware of deposits in his account

In respect of these R50 payments, both were found not guilty on five charges of corruption - Galant because he was unaware of the deposits into his account, and had not been party to them, and Damons because he did not know that gifts to government servants were illegal, and thus lacked criminal intent.

Damons alone was charged with fraud, but found not guilty, relating to an alleged R50 loan obtained from one of the teachers under false pretences.

On this charge, it was alleged that he borrowed the money on the pretence that he would repay it, but failed to, but the court accepted his version that the money had been for petrol to drive the teacher to visit a relative.

On a sixth charge of corruption, Damons was alleged to have given Galant a R1 000 gift, and a R2 000 loan.

Magistrate Amrith Chabilall said Galant had been unaware of the R1 000 deposit into his bank account, and had declined to accept it and repaid it when he found out about it, while Damons, because he did not know gifts were illegal, lacked criminal intent.

- SAPA