The Pietermaritzburg High Court has ordered a former Umgeni Water technician to pay the utility back more than R2 million he earned during his time there- after it emerged he used a fake degree to get the job.
Six years after he started working at the water utility, Sheldon Naidoo was caught out after he applied for another position, according to EyeWitness News (EWN).
Naidoo joined Umgeni Water in 2008, when he was accepted into the graduate development programme.
However, in 2016, questions about the legitimacy of his qualifications emerged after he applied for a new position at the utility.
He subsequently resigned after questions emerged.
When Sheldon Naidoo applied for a position as a process technician in 2016, the degree he put up when he first joined Umgeni Water, was sent to the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) for verification.
But the university came back to say it had no record of the degree having been conferred on Naidoo.
When asked for proof that he resigned from the institution, Naidoo ultimately resigned.
The company took him to court and last week the Pietermaritzburg High Court ordered him to pay back R2.2 million he had earned from Umgeni Water.
In court Naidoo maintained that his degree was legitimate.
Testimony from a student records official at UKZN contradicted this. The official said Naidoo was excluded from his studies two years after starting them because there was no progress.
The court ruled that his degree was indeed fake and ordered that he has to pay back the R2.2 million he received while working at Umgeni Water.
Source: Times live, Eyewitness News, IOL, image from Twitter: @TheTruthPanther