t’s not often that a payment error is made by your school which sees you becoming nearly a millionaire overnight.
But for one woman, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Would you give it back? Or would you go on a whopping spending spree?
Well, when Sibongile Mani, who attended the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) in South Africa checked her bank account to find that she’d been paid 14 million rands (which in 2017 was around £850,000).
Typically, the woman was meant to receive around £85 a month in the form of benefits from a government aid scheme to help her to pay for food and essentials, but this amount was one heck of a mistake.
However, even though it was an obvious error on their part, Mani decided to make the most of the opportunity by going on a huge shopping spree.
In the days after the money was deposited, Mani splashed the cash on designer clothes, the latest iPhone and expensive bottles of liquor.
Sibongile Mani was sent hundreds of thousands in error (Facebook)
She’d spent more than £50,000 of the money she received when she was finally caught through a bank receipt she left behind at a supermarket.
Samkelo Mqhayi, branch secretary of the South African Students Congress, told Herald Live at the time: “She was just suddenly spending so much. Her supermarket receipt which was leaked showed she had 13.6m rand in her account and she had been throwing parties for her friends and showering them with gifts without worry.”
Mani was quickly reported to police, and she was arrested in 2017 and charged with theft and fraud.
It’s been a lengthy battle up until 2022, when she was sentenced to five years in prison.
But in the end, it was appealed after Mani claimed that she saw the money as a ‘gift from God’ and her sentence was suspended in 2023.
The student’s sentence was overturned on the basis she does community service (Facebook)
Mani’s five-year sentence was suspended on the condition that she committed no theft or fraud in that time, as well as completing 14 weeks of community service and undergo counselling.
Her lawyer, Asanda Pakade, said: “She is very relieved and very happy that she does not have to go to prison and is looking to putting all this behind her and starting again.
“She is putting her life which was left in tatters back together again and is looking forward to starting afresh and is very grateful that the court took the decisions that it took.”