Former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama has applied to the High Court in Johannesburg to have the criminal case against him struck from the roll.
Gama is the fourth accused in a fraud case involving Transnet. The trial was set to begin in February this year but was postponed.
In court papers filed on March 13, his attorney, Talia Simpson, states that the state has unreasonably delayed the case and failed to give the defence proper access to evidence.
The state provided the defence with 49.5 terabytes of electronic data on hard drives in November 2025. When the defence attempted to access the data, it could not be read because it was in a forensic format requiring special software. Simpson states the state did not inform the defence of this beforehand.
In a supporting affidavit, forensic expert Jacques van Wyk explains why the data is not usable. “A forensic image is not made for human review with ordinary programs. It must first be processed with special tools. It must be indexed and made searchable. Without this work, the data is just raw material,” he states.
The case, before the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg, involves 13 accused, including businessman Kubentheran Moodley, Albatime, Eric Wood, Siyabonga Gama, Garry Pita, Daniel Roy, Phetolo Ramosebudi, Magandheran Niven Pillay, Litha Mveliso Nyhonyha, Regiments Capital, Brian Molefe, Anoj Singh and Trillian Asset Management.
Gama faces two counts of fraud (with alternatives) and two counts of contravening the Public Finance Management Act. The court had directed on January 31, 2025, that the matter proceed to plea and trial on February 2, 2026, with eight weeks reserved, but that trial date was later postponed.
On February 26, the state gave the defence a new list of witnesses. Simpson compared it with the witness list in the indictment from January 2025 and found 20 new witnesses, including Cyanre, a digital forensics firm.
She states the state is changing its case, and the defence cannot know what it must meet.
In an email dated March 4, senior state advocate Emile van der Merwe responded to the defence’s complaints, stating the claims are misguided. He said the defence received training from Digital Forensics South Africa on how to access the
data and that the state does not have a sophisticated analytic tool, and reminded the defence that Acting Justice Karam dismissed a previous application for further particulars.
Simpson states the state confuses two different issues. She states the previous application was about particulars of the indictment, not disclosure of the docket. She states the state still has not given chain-of-custody documents or a proper index.
She also questions the state’s claim that it has no special tools, noting that the Minnaar affidavit refers to a cloud-based e-discovery platform. She says some experts the defence approached could not assist because they already work for the state.
Simpson states the prejudice against her client is serious. She states the defence must spend large sums of money just to start processing the data, while the state has had access to the servers for years and has had time to analyse the data and build its case. The defence has had only months and no way to use the data properly.
She asks the court to grant an order under section 342A of the Criminal Procedure Act declaring an unreasonable delay causing substantial prejudice. She asks that the matter be struck from the roll and that the prosecution not resume without the written instruction of the
National Director of Public Prosecutions.
If the court grants a postponement instead, she asks for protective orders forbidding the state from introducing any evidence at trial that was not properly discovered and made accessible to the defence.
Gama has signed a confirmatory affidavit stating he has read his attorney’s affidavit and the facts are true.
The application is now before the court. The state must file its answering papers, after which the court will set a date for the hearing.
- Former Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama has applied to the High Court in Johannesburg to have the criminal case against him struck from the roll.
- Gama is the fourth accused in a fraud case involving Transnet.
- The trial was set to begin in February this year but was postponed.
- In court papers filed on March 13, his attorney, Talia Simpson, states that the state has unreasonably delayed the case and failed to give the defence proper access to evidence.
- The state provided the defence with 49.5 terabytes of electronic data on hard drives in November 2025.
