Africa-Press – South-Africa. Former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede’s corruption trial had to be postponed on Thursday after the first witness in the trial failed to make it to court after falling ill.
City Integrity and Investigation Unit (CIIU) head Mbuso Ngcobo has been testifying all week in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban.
While Judge Sharmaine Balton did not disclose the nature of his illness, she indicated to the court that Ngcobo would be booked off until Wednesday 22 March.
Meanwhile, a second witness was expected to take the stand on Friday, Balton said.
For the past week, Ngcobo had been going toe-to-toe with Gumede’s lawyer Jay Naidoo, who has been trying to poke holes in the supply chain processes of the CIIU.
Naidoo has argued that the hiring of Integrity Forensic Solutions (IFS) was rushed and selective.
IFS was responsible for the bulk of the forensic investigation that led to the arrests of Gumede and her 21 co-accused.
Naidoo has further questioned Ngcobo on the role of the eThekwini disciplinary board – a body made up of an accountant, a university academic, and a labour lawyer – which dealt with issues of financial misconduct in the City.
He claims that CIIU was a “power unto itself” and should have been reporting issues of fraud and corruption to municipal structures.
Ngcobo, however, said that the CIIU worked and reported “the same way as an internal audit”.
He said the CIIU reported to the city manager and oversight committees within the municipality.
The State is alleging that Gumede, former councillor Mondli Mthembu, former city manager Sipho Nzuza, deputy head of Durban Solid Waste (DSW) Robert Abbu, and the deputy head of supply chain management Sandile Ngcobo, all worked together as the main roleplayers in corruption and racketeering.
They were the primary persons in an enterprise that conspired to rig DSW contracts valued at over R320 million to favour their preferred contractors and sub-contractors, the State has argued.
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