Hotel group's former accountant appears for fraud

Cape Town - An accountant who admitted guilt "to a certain degree" on multiple fraud charges involving the Raya Hotel Group appeared in court in Cape Town on Monday.

Mymona Creighton, 31, is conducting her own defence, and has pleaded not guilty to 234 counts of fraud involving R9 687 677.

The Raya group owns the Capetonian Hotel in Cape Town and the Balmoral Hotel in Durban.

Creighton appeared in the Bellville Specialised Commercial Crime Court before Magistrate Sabrina Sonnenberg.

At Monday's proceedings, she told the court she needed time to study a batch of documents from prosecutor Simon Leopie. The case was postponed to Wednesday.

Creighton began working for the group 10 years ago as the assistant to the accountant. Seven years later she was promoted to the post of accountant based at the head office in Cape Town.

Last month, the group's chief executive, Moegamat Latief, told the court he became suspicious when Creighton presented him with a cheque for signature, with the payee's name written faintly in pencil.

He said he made her write the name properly, "but thought it very strange".

He later asked for the same cheque again, "and this time the name of the payee had been written over in heavy ballpoint".

This made him more suspicious, and when he called for all the cheques that had been signed for payment in recent months, many of them were missing. He said he had to obtain copies of the cheques from the bank.

"We discovered a lot of outstanding bills that should have been paid," he said.

After the State had closed its case, Creighton wanted to call Latief's father, also in the business, to testify on her behalf, but he declined.