The State and the defence disagreed yesterday 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 were 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 worth more than R320 million. 

The media has been prohibited from naming State witnesses in this matter. 

During proceedings at the Durban High Court, the State put it to the current witness that the figures for household numbers  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. 

However, Abbu’s counsel, advocate Jay Naidoo SC, disputed this. He stated that the previous witness X, who had drafted the tender advertisement, said Abbu gave her a document that had contained 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 for the Bid Adjudication Committee (BAC).

Howse reminded witness X that she previously stated that while drafting the document she made several errors due to the pressure of Abbu 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 household numbers that Abbu gave to witness X was not disputed by the defence. The State was currently leading evidence of witness Y, whose duties included confirming project budgets and estimates. 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

Source link