Durban — The case of fraud and corruption involving former mayor of eThekwini Municipality Zandile Gumede and 21 others was postponed by the Durban High court until October 2023.
The case, which has been delayed several times, did not go as planned on Friday as the witness did not show up but a medical certificate was produced.
Last week the witness who is a retired municipal official did not come to court for two days due to illness.
On Wednesday Judge Sharmaine Balton postponed the case until Friday and requested that court start early at 8am to make up for the lost time.
“We might have to sit a little later on Friday and use lunchtime so that the cross-examination of this witness is concluded and advocate Jay Naidoo (representative of one of the accused) can cross-examine him,” she had said.
However, all of this did not happen as the case had to be postponed.
Gumede and her co-accused are facing more than 2 000 charges, including conspiracy to commit corruption, corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and contravention of the Municipal Systems Act worth more than R300 million relating to a Durban Solid Waste tender. Throughout the delays Gumede expressed how unhappy she was about the delays. She said when the witnesses should come and bring evidence in court they all get sick.
Furthermore, at the beginning of the year, the former head of eThekwini’s City Integrity and Investigations Unit (CIIU) Mbuso Ngcobo’s illness caused delays in this case as he was unable to be in court. Ngcobo had been investigating high profile cases in the city which included this one. He has since resigned as the head of the CIIU as he said his life was threatened. Since then the former provincial police commissioner of Mpumalanga Thulani Ntobela was appointed to head the CIIU at the beginning of this month.
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