By KEDIBONE MOLAETSI
The 52-years-old suspect was arrested by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Investigation on Wednesday for alleged fraud. The Hawks’ spokesperson in the North West, Capt Tlangelani Rikhotso said the suspect who is employed by the Maquassi Hills Municipality as a Technician allegedly approached a client who’s municipal account was in arrears of approximately R1 million and offered to cancel the debt in exchange for a payment of R112 000.
“Then the matter was reported to the Hawks and the suspect was arrested during an operation after he was found in possession of the R112 000 which was paid to him by the client,” Rikhotso said.
She said the suspect will appear at the Wolmaranstad Magistrate’s Court on Thursday.
The Guardian 
I cannot say I am surprised that such a thing, allegedly, happened in Maquassi Hills, especially implicating an employee of the municipality. However, I am more intrigued by the allegation that someone’s municipality account was in arrears of approximately R1 million. This is because according to the municipality I owe them approx. R110 000 for water consumption – my issue is currently handled by my lawyers. The municipality decided to “estimate” my household water consumption from an average of 15 kilolitres per month to a whooping 300 kilolitres per month. Despite, continuous appeals they continued to charge me more than R6 900 for water every month (from approximately R230 per month) for a number of months. They refused to address this matter since July 2018 until I involved lawyers (It is only then that they decided to record rather than “estimate” my household monthly water consumption.
So, for me one of the questions I am asking myself is: did the municipal client referred to above really owe the municipality R1 million in arrears or was the debt a fabrication like mine? But also, if one municipality employee did this to one consumer, as it is alleged, how many other municipality employees are doing this? Someone needs to do a lot of digging as there seems to be a lot of rot in Maquassi Hills Municipality!!!
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