Fraudster Sheldon Naidoo of Durban kept spinning lies to cover up his trail of deceit — finally claiming he was suffering from a traumatic, unspecified “life-threatening” illness.

But Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Rob Mossop was not taken in, describing Naidoo as an unimpressive and untruthful witness “with an (albeit weak) answer for every question”. He also showed no contrition for his fraudulent behaviour.

“The indisputable facts reveal that [Naidoo] set out to deceive and wove his web accordingly. He achieved his goal. He has now become entangled in a web that he alone devised and cannot now be heard to complain of the consequences that must follow.”

The court heard evidence that Naidoo landed a job as a process control technician in 2008 at Umgeni Water — a regional water utility that supplies drinking water to residents of Durban, Pietermaritzburg and other centres in KwaZulu-Natal.

Senior Umgeni Water official Peter Thompson explained that his organisation trained and mentored university graduates so they could later become professional engineers registered by the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA).

Having an unqualified person working for the water utility could potentially be ‘extremely hazardous to the wellbeing of a large number of people who are dependent on water supplied,’ the court heard.

This was because graduates were required to perform calculations to determine which chemicals, and in what quantity, should be added to water supplied to millions of people in KZN.

“Any error in performing such calculations caused through a lack of knowledge could potentially have incredibly serious consequences for the general populace,” the judge noted.

Though Naidoo claimed to have a B.Sc degree in chemical engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), his true academic record showed that he dropped out of UKZN at the end of 2004 because of poor marks — flunking Fluid Dynamics with a score of 28 and Engineering Physics with a mark of 42.

R2m repayment and punitive costs

In a civil case judgment handed down on 15 December, Judge Mossop ordered Naidoo to repay Umgeni R2,203,565 for salary and other payments made to him over eight years — as well as punitive legal costs and interest fees until the full amount was settled.

“[Naidoo] must be ordered to disgorge what he received from [Umgeni] arising out of the fraud that he perpetrated on it. If [Naidoo] is of the view that he is entitled to compensation for unjust enrichment from [Umgeni], he is free to establish that claim in appropriate legal proceedings.”

The court heard that Naidoo came unstuck when Umgeni instituted a new policy in 2016 to verify the qualifications of all its employees.

When Naidoo’s alleged B.Sc failed to pass muster with the verification company, his immediate supervisor (Thompson) initially thought that there had been a mistake.

He gave Naidoo time off to rectify the apparent mistake and procure proof from UKZN to verify the validity of his degree.

When that failed, Thompson asked whether he could dig out some family snapshots of his graduation ceremony. “Yes,” replied Naidoo. He did have some family snaps of that happy occasion. Thompson also suggested he try to remember the names of fellow graduates who studied with him during his final-year project design group.

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But then the stories started to change.

Suddenly, his academic records had been “stolen” from the family safe. The snapshots did not exist, because Naidoo never attended his graduation because he was apparently working outside KZN at the time and was short of travel cash to attend the graduation ceremony. Nor could he recall the names of any of the people in his project design group.

And then, when disciplinary proceedings began, Naidoo suddenly fell very ill and tendered his resignation.

The nail in the coffin, perhaps, came in the form of evidence from Nonhlanhla Gladness Mofokeng, acting head of central student records at UKZN.

Armed with a bound book recording all the relevant details of every graduation ceremony at UKZN in 2008, Mofokeng confirmed that Naidoo’s name was not there.

Naidoo’s alleged certificate also stated that the “degree” was conferred on 24 April — whereas the Faculty of Engineering held its graduation ceremonies on 18 April. DM/OBP