The State and the defence on Monday disagreed on how a previous State witness established the number of households that needed to be serviced in a R320 million Durban Solid Waste tender deal as these were contained in a closed 2017 tender advertisement. 

Former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and her 21 co-accused are charged with multiple counts of fraud, racketeering, corruption, money laundering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and the Municipal Systems Act, relating to the Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender of more than R320 million. 

The State on Monday at Durban High Court proposed to the current witness, that those figures in the tender’s bid specification were provided by Allan Robert Abbu. Abbu, at the time, was the Deputy Head for cleansing and solid waste. The media is prohibited from naming State witnesses. 

However, Abbu’s counsel, advocate Jay Naidoo SC, disputed this, saying that the previous witness X, who had drafted the tender advertisement, said Abbu gave her a document that had the figure of the number of households that needed to be serviced. 

Advocate Jimmy Howse SC interjected and reminded the witness in her evidence in chief that she had told the court that she was under pressure while drafting the advertisement, as Abbu also wanted her to draft a report that was to go to the Bid Adjudication Committee (BAC).

Howse reminded witness X that she had said while she was drafting the document, that she made a lot of errors because she was under pressure and Abbu was standing behind her. 

Naidoo said if the State could tell him where witness X said Abbu was dictating the numbers of households to be serviced while he stood behind her, it would be different. 

“Her evidence was that Abbu was in and out of her office,” he said. 

He said the document that contained the household numbers that Abbu gave to witness X is not disputed by the defence. The State is currently leading evidence of witness Y, who said part of her job was to confirm project budgets and estimate them. Witness Y told the court that the number of households that were in the BAC report prepared by witness X was tripled, and some were doubled. 

nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za

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