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Court hears how student duped CPUT into letting her graduate

───   16:28 Wed, 11 Dec 2019

Court hears how student duped CPUT into letting her graduate | News Article

Load-shedding affected day one of the trial of a young woman accused of misleading the Eastern Cape Health Department about obtaining her qualification as a radiographer from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2016.


The 25-year-old Asisipho Mbekela's fraud trial was moved from the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court to the city's Magistrate's Court due to scheduled load-shedding early on Tuesday.

Mbekela, who worked as a radiographer doing community service at Livingstone Hospital during 2016, under instruction from her attorney Mr Moolman pleaded not guilty to three fraud charges and two of forgery.

In reading her plea into the record, Moolman said Mbekela had no knowledge of the fraudulent activity.

He said she believes the National Diploma in Radiography, which was awarded to her during her graduation ceremony on 15 April 2016, was legitimately done so.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Clint Jacobs called the States first witness, Magdalene Bauman, a CPUT Assessment and Graduate administrator, to the stand.

Bauman testified that Mbekela approached her on her graduation day minutes before the procession began, stating that there was no seat allocated to her amongst fellow graduates.

She said following this, Mbekela indicated to her that this may have been because she wrote a special supplementary exam due previously failing three of her four final modules, but a lecturer had subsequently emailed her the latest results from the special exam which now indicated a pass and thus access to the graduation.

Bauman said Mbekela then presented the results to her which she then printed, and she proceeded to graduate.

The validity of the results was however followed up with CPUT Department Heads days later.

According to the State Mbekela not once but twice intentionally forged a document in writing showing that she did pass all her subjects.

The State is arguing that Mbekela knew she was not qualified and therefore also knew that she was not entitled to accept any offer of employment from the Department of Health.

The Eastern Cape Health Department offered her a job on a contractual basis in 2015 for the period 1 January-31st December 2016. She arranged with the Department to start her employment on the 1st of March 2016. When the department realised that she did not have the necessary qualifications they dismissed her on the 20th of September.

According to the indictment, Mbekela made misrepresentations to the Department of Health and falsely indicated on her Z83 application form that she had obtained a qualification "Radiography Nuclear Med" at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology in 2015.

However, the State alleges that Mbekela lied about her qualification and failed dismally, only passing one of her four subjects during her final examination.

According to the State, she obtained the following results:

Radiographic Practice 35%,  

Clinical Radio-graphic Practice 50%,

Nuclear Medicine Instrumentation 25%

Radio-pharmacy 32%  

In order to pass a subject, a student must obtain a mark of at least 50% or more. A student who obtains less than a sub-minimum of 40% shall not be allowed to write a supplementary examination. The National Diploma in Radiography: Nuclear Medicine, is a minimum requirement for registration in radiography.

The trial continues.


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