| One supplier realised that he could double his billings to the company simply by bribing the weighbridge staff tow weigh in each truck twice, and weigh them twice on the way out, using two sets of vehicle registration numbers for each truck. The supplier could them bill the company twice for each load. "The weighbridge staff liked the scheme so much, they decided to expand it and bill the company for non-existent loads themselves. All they needed to do was persuade other suppliers' drivers to weigh in and out twice, generally on the pretext that the weighbridge was malfunctioning," says Ockie Fourie CEO of OF&A. Unfortunately for them, one of the drivers' suspicions were aroused, and he reported the behaviour to his employer. This act of honestly lead to the deployment of a team of OF&A operations staff who conducted surveillance over a period of 15 days. The surveillance generated enough videotape evidence to highlight the exact mechanism of the scam and prove who was involved. The weighbridge staff members were summarily dismissed and are prosecuted. |
