The Minister of Public Enterprises, Lynne Brown, has condemned the abuse of both her name and that of the Department by unscrupulous syndicates whereby they trick the public and businesses to part with money.
Brown has become aware of two schemes where people were asked to pay R2 500 for a position in the Department and where fraudsters posed as Supply Chain Management officers of the Department.
“The public received requests on their Facebook inboxes this week purportedly from me requesting advance payment of R2 500 for positions in the Department. It appears authentic as the mail contains all my contact details with a contact person.
“In another scheme, a company was defrauded of R112 000 a week ago and a criminal case has been opened with the South African Police Service. In this instance the perpetrators lured individual private service providers to submit quotations to ‘DPE’ for specific services required,” she says.
“The modus operandi of the fraudsters is  that they  attach the Department’s logo  to their communication with the unsuspecting victims. They then pretend to be supply chain management officers and request other supporting documentation from service providers, which is followed by requests to have money deposited into their account(s).
“I appeal to the public to be vigilant and want to make it clear that the Department does not ask advance payment for any possible service to be rendered to the department and/or its state-owned companies.
“The Department’s supply chain management unit maintains a database of all registered service providers and no upfront payment is required. Registration to this database is free,” Brown says.