The proceedings of the Nelson Mandela funeral fraud and corruption trial were on Tuesday moved to a different court in East London following a second day of power outages at the Bhisho High Court.
The proceedings were adjourned on Monday after power interruptions hit just when judge Igna Stretch was about to take her seat and get the trial under way. The Buffalo City Metro has since blamed cable theft and vandalism of electricity infrastructure for the outages.
On Tuesday, the court said it had procured a generator and fuel but was struggling to supply the building with adequate electricity, resulting in the trial being moved to the Sanlam Building for the proceedings to get under way this afternoon.
The Sanlam Building is often used as a tribunal court by the Bhisho/East London High Court.
Taking the stand before Stretch is former ANC chairperson of the Dr WB Rubusana region (Buffalo City Metro) Phumlani Mkolo, former Buffalo City mayor Zukiswa Ncita, former Eastern Cape health MEC Sindiswa Gomba who was a Buffalo City councillor at the time of the alleged criminal act, former Buffalo City Metro deputy executive mayor Temba Tinta, a group of municipal officials, business people and their business entities.
They are charged with creating and participating in a scheme designed to defraud the metro of R10-million under the false pretense that the funds would be utilised for memorial events in the build-up to Mandela’s funeral in December 2013.
The scheme was discovered in January 2014 when the accused were trying to claim the remaining R4-million after close to R6-million was paid in December 2013 to an account of a businessman, Mzwandile Ntozini (formerly known as Sonkwali), who then dispersed it to various accounts of the accused.
Meanwhile, senior counsel Pat Jefferys and advocate Matthew Mpahlwa, who had earlier recused themselves from representing Tinta, have been retained after reaching an agreement with their instructing attorney Ncumisa Nongogo of Malusi and Co Attorneys in East London.
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