Bongani Ntanzi, who is accused number two in the Senzo Meyiwa murder trial, was allegedly absent from work on the day the Bafana Bafana star was killed.
This was revealed by the new state witness Hedrick Mulder, a human resource manager at Sibanye Gold, during his testimony in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday.
Mulder previously confirmed in a statement to police that Ntanzi was employed by Sibanye Gold in Carletonville, West Rand.
According to the workplace clocking history of the accused, said Mulder, Ntanzi was last seen at 6.57am on the day before Meyiwa’s murder.
Meyiwa was gunned down while visiting his then-girlfriend Kelly Khumalo at her home in Vosloorus, east of Johannesburg on October 26 2014.
Mulder said the statement he submitted was solely based on the clocking history he retrieved when the police approached him, but probed further when he was called to testify in court.
“When I was approached by the state to testify, I actually pulled a personal file of Mr Ntazi and I felt that it was imperative for me to notify and to state for the record that there was a leave of absence that was submitted for Mr Ntanzi for the period of 27 October 2014 to 31 October 2014,” Mulder said.
He said the leave of absence application was stated to be for personal reasons and was approved as unpaid leave.
Sipho Ramosepele, who is representing Ntanzi, argued that his client had no reason to state reasons for his absence from work on October 26 2014, granted that his contract stipulated that he does not work on Sundays.
Said Mulder: “Non-working days, on the employee’s payslip, would reflect as such. So, on his payslip it would have a code that would say ‘in w’, which is a non-working shift.
“We work on a 25 days cycle and it includes the non-working days.
“So, it is from the first to the last day of the month, but depending on the pay cycle, we also have five different pay cycles.
“I just have to confirm with the court when is his exact cycle.”
Mulder promised the court a copy of Ntanzi’s payslip dating back to the month of October 2014 to establish if he was paid in full.
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