Daniel Mthimkhulu with former Prasa executives Mosenngwa Mofi and Lucky Montana during a media briefing on July 6, 2015 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Gallo Images / Beeld / Deaan Vivier)
Former head of engineering at the Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (Prasa), Daniel Mthimkhulu, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for falsifying his qualifications and other documents.
In early 2022, Mthimkhulu was found guilty on three counts of fraud for falsifying his qualifications and for submitting a fake offer of employment to drive his salary higher.
On Tuesday, the Specialised Commercial Crime Court in Johannesburg sentenced him to an effective imprisonment term of 15 years.
On the first count of fraud, Mthimkhulu was sentenced to 15 years. On the two other counts of fraud, he was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for each. These will run concurrently with one another and with the 15-year prison term.
Mthimkhulu was proven to have misrepresented his qualifications to Prasa after claiming to have a master’s degree from the University of the Witwatersrand and a doctorate in engineering management from the Technische Universität München in Germany. He also falsified a job offer from a German company in order to drive his salary higher.
In earlier court appearances, the prosecution said Mthimkhulu went out of his way to forge fraudulent documents, deceive Prasa and ultimately enrich himself at the parastatal’s expense.
Mthimkhulu was involved in massive capital projects within Prasa with his lack of qualifications placing all the projects at considerable risk.
These projects included the procurement of locomotives from Spain, which proved too tall to operate safely on the rail network.
“As a result of the misrepresentation and fabricated CV, Prasa suffered prejudice in that his annual salary was unduly hiked from R1.6 million as executive manager to heading the engineering services for a salary to the tune of R2.8 million,” the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks), said in a statement.
The Hawks’ Serious Economic Offences Unit of the Serious Commercial Crime Investigation was instrumental in ensuring that Mthimkhulu was ultimately convicted.
The High Court in Johannesburg had, on 5 March 2024, attached both immovable and movable properties belonging to Mthimkhulu and further ordered that he pay R5.8 million to Prasa to recoup the proceeds of crime.
– additional reporting by Belinda Pheto.
