Over the course of a year, Build It employee Itani Dormonic Mufamadi (37) stole building materials totaling R40 000 from his employer. The stolen merchandise included cement, bricks and paint.

Mufamadi intentionally misfiled invoice paperwork at the Louis Trichardt company, allowing him to remove stock from the retailer without being noticed. He was eventually caught when a Build It customer came to the store to return R3 300 of cement, the paperwork for which Mufamadi had already marked as “returned.”

“We checked back in our records to look for similar events and found all kinds of credit misfiling. He stole a lot of stock,” said Ms Elize Barnard of Build It.

In the Louis Trichardt District Court on May 26, Mufamadi was found guilty on eight counts of theft and sentenced to eight years in prison. However, the entirety of his sentence was conditionally suspended for a period of four years.

The first condition of his suspended sentence is that Mufamadi is not to be convicted of theft or fraud during the period of his suspension. The second condition is that he must repay Build It to the amount of R40 000 by installment payments of R1 000 per month until the debt is repaid.