Pietermaritzburg doctor and hospital owner Dr Navind Dayanand, accused of swindling the South African Revenue Service (SARS) out of millions of rands, insists he is innocent and that his day in court will vindicate him.
Despite being served with an interim restraint order to the value of R39m by the KZN Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) last week, it has been business as usual at the Daymed Private Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, with Dayanand saying he is was co-operating with authorities.
Dayanand has been accused, with his wife Nerupa, who was the financial manager of the company, Douglas Mpofu and Carla Domenica Louden, both tax practitioners, as well as Yagasami Ronnie Perumal, a bookkeeper at the hospital, of defrauding SARS, and submitting false corporate income tax, VAT and personal income tax returns to SARS.
To recoup the money from which they allegedly benefited, immovable property, medical equipment, furniture, vehicles and computers have been placed under curatorship.
Dayanand’s lawyer, Preggy Naicker, told The Sunday Tribune that they had been in communication with SARS and had been co-operating since 2017 when Dayanand’s tax woes began.
He said they did not agree with the amounts mentioned by the AFU as they were in possession of documentation with a different figure.
“Queries and objections have been made since 2017 …There have been a lot of discrepancies and we have had other correspondence where the value was higher. Our teams are re-looking into our books to get to proper figures,” said Naicker.
He has blamed the hospital’s problems on its former accountant, who was dismissed in 2017 and turned state witness. In the same year, the accountant was arrested for falsely representing himself and faced a charge of suspected fraud.
At the time, the man’s lawyer said he was a qualified accountant with bachelor’s and Master’s degrees obtained through correspondence from London’s Canterbury School of Economics.
“He was dismissed and that’s when all these queries came to Dr Dayanand’s knowledge. My client has been co-operating with all the authorities, but we heard a rumour that the doctor is disposing of assets, which is a lie,” Naicker said.
In November, the Dayanands, Mpofu, Louden and Perumal were to appear before the Pietermaritzburg Commercial Crimes Court but Dayanand, his wife and Louden did not show up. The court issued warrants of arrest, which have been stayed until the next court date in February.
“During that appearance, things were misconstrued. The doctor and his wife had a pre-arranged appointment and they couldn’t cancel. For those reasons a letter was handed to the court and it was accepted. It’s normal procedure for the court to issue a warrant and then stay it for the next court date,” said Naicker.
NPA regional spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said the matter would resume on 24 February, for statements and for all the accused to appear in court.
“The hospital is charged with company income tax fraud, VAT and PAYE credit fraud with an actual prejudice of about R37m to SARS and a potential prejudice of R498m for PAYE.
“Dr Dayanand is charged with personal income tax fraud, VAT fraud to the value of R142m and PAYE credit fraud with the potential prejudice of R637m to SARS,” she added.
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