Restaurant manager in court in K115,000 case

A RESTAURANT manager appeared in the Waigani Committal Court on Monday charged with stealing more than K115,000 from her employer in Port Moresby.
Rusila Rara Salabogi, 43, originally of Lautoka in Fiji, appeared before Magistrate Cosmas Bidar charged with stealing K115,518.87 from the Shady Rest Hotel.
The court ruled that on the evidence contained in the police investigation, there was enough evidence for the accused to be tried in court.
It was alleged that there were no submissions made on the sufficiency of the evidence by the accused or any defence counsel on her behalf.
Bidar adjourned the case to Tuesday, giving time for the accused and her lawyer to prepare their statements.
The court heard that Salabogi had been the restaurant manager at Shady Rest Hotel since May last year. It was alleged that while working there, she stole an average of K300 daily from the cashier and deleted the receipts from the computer. She continuously did that for almost 10 months.
On Feb 14, managing director Ekbal Rayani discovered an overcharged receipt from a customer which he could not trace using the company’s system audit trial.
He asked the assistant manager the next day to double check and she found that another cash receipt for K130 for the purchase of a cake was also missing.
A follow-up by the financial management team found that the paid receipt had been deleted.
Further investigation found that more receipts had been deleted, going back to May 2017.
The accused admitted the offence. She was arrested and charged by Boroko police. Her bail was extended.