Johannesburg – National Treasury fraud buster Zanele Mxunyelwa has been awarded a top award for recovering money that the state was defrauded of by unscrupulous fraudsters.
Mxunyelwa, the National Treasury’s head of specialised audit services was named the 2015 Certified Examiner of the year during a gala dinner of the South African chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) held at the Sandton Convention Centre, on Tuesday.
“This top award confirms that indeed as government, we’ve stepped up the fight against fraud and corruption in our country, while we congratulate Mxunyelwa for her tireless efforts … we also need to warn those who are planning to get involved in the corrupt and fraudulent activities to refrain from doing so before our law catches up with them,” said Communications Minister Faith Muthambi.
Minister Muthambi, who attended the 8th annual ACFE Africa Conference and Exhibition, also congratulated the National Treasury for winning the ACFE corporate member award. “We congratulate the National Treasury for their efforts of saving millions if not billions of rands of the taxpayer’s money,” she said.
The ACFE is the world’s largest anti-fraud organisation and premier provider of anti-fraud training and education.
Mxunyelwa told SAnews that there was no case that was too difficult that they could not investigate as National Treasury, adding that fraud and corruption will be eliminated.
“As South Africans, we have a responsibility to prevent fraud and corruption, it is a struggle that must be fought by all of us…with our well educated future generation who understand the impact of fraud and corruption in hindering service delivery, I strongly believe that we will eliminate this scourge.
When she joined the National Treasury in 2010, Mxunyelwa was the first to set up a forensic investigation unit for the whole country.
“We are responsible to conduct forensic investigation for all spheres of government and coordinating all investigations and feed them to the Anti-Corruption Task Team that is headed by the Ministerial Committee headed by the Presidency.
“We are also assisting the country to investigate foreign bribery. My unit is capacitated with Advocates, Chartered Accountant, Cyber specialists and there are ten forensic firms that are assisting us throughout the country and I believe that we will conquer and we will succeed,” she said.
Asked about the significance of the award, Mxunyelwa said: “No one talks about the National Treasury in terms of dealing with fraud and corruption in the country…no one knows that we exist, no one knew where to report fraudulent activities, now that we’ve won the top awards, it means people will know that there are effective fraud busters at the National Treasury.” - SAnews.gov.za
