Former hotel employee to be sentenced for theft and accounting fraud

A Tongatapu woman, who stole $21, 299.00 pa’anga from her former employer, Tanoa International Dateline Hotel, will be sentenced at a later date for her offences.

Selemana Fonua was guilty of false accounting and theft after the Supreme Court found she was responsible for false documents namely spreadsheets with false names which are contrary to section 159 (a) of Criminal Offence Acts.

Kaniva News reports Judge Charles Cato convicted Fonua on 19 January on both charges.

Justice Cato said Fonua prepared the spreadsheets that caused Tanoa Fiji to pay a sum in wages to Tonga that enabled her to draw a cheque to pay for wages.

Court documents showed this took place seventeen times between 22 May and 11 December 2015.

Justice Cato said: “I consider also that, during this period, beyond any reasonable doubt she entered into this pattern of deceit so as to steal the proceeds of the inflated cheques for wages that were drawn by Tanoa during this period.”

The judge said each of the spreadsheets contained false names.

“The inference, I draw beyond reasonable doubt, was that the accused pursued this pattern of conduct so as to obtain the cash represented by the inclusion of the “ghost names.”

“Accordingly, I find beyond any reasonable doubt that, being employed as an administration officer for Tanoa Hotels (Tonga) Limited, she knowingly took the sum of $21, 299.00 ….. which was the proceeds of cheques drawn by Tanoa to meet wages and  fraudulently or dishonestly and without colour of right applied this to the use of another namely for her own use and enjoyment without the permission of her employer Tanoa.”