Former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede.
Image: Doctor Ngcobo / Independent Newspapers
The R320 million Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender fraud case involving former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and 21 others had to be adjourned on Friday morning due to one of the accused being sick.
The accused are charged with multiple counts of fraud, racketeering, corruption, money laundering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act, and the Municipal Systems Act, relating to this tender.
Mzwandile Dludla, the 11th accused, started feeling ill on Thursday after lunchtime. On Friday morning, advocate Paul Jorgensen, who is representing Dludla, told the court that his client was still sick and was not even able to join the court proceedings virtually.
Judge Sharmaine Balton postponed the matter to Monday morning and asked that a medical certificate be provided by Dludla.
Before Dludla’s sickness, advocate Jay Naidoo had been cross-examining a State witness. The state witness, who cannot be named, worked at the Solid Waste Unit during 2017.
In her evidence-in-chief, she had agreed with the State that there was a tender advertised in November 2017 for waste collection, and the closing date was December 13, 2017.
According to the witness, 475 responses to the tender had been received by December 4, adding that they were anticipating a great number.
She stated that the evaluation of the tender bids (responses to the advertised tender) began on December 13, after the closing time. She claimed that on December 14, she spoke with Allan Robert Abbu, the fourth accused and the DSW Unit's deputy head at the time.
According to the witness, she requested overtime from him so that the staff could continue with the evaluation process. The weekend of December 16 was scheduled for the overtime.
She claimed that Abbu refused to grant overtime and said he had a plan. “I did not ask him what the plan was.”
The witness contradicted herself on Wednesday regarding the time she requested overtime from Abbu. At first, she claimed she couldn't recall the date. She claimed that during a farewell party on December 15, she verbally requested overtime.
She then asked Naidoo to refer to her affidavit, in which she had said it was on December 14. However, she insisted on December 15 and would sometimes change to December 14.
When the question of overtime arose on Thursday morning, she stated that she had requested it on December 14. She added that she had left someone else in charge while she was on leave from December 14–19.
Naidoo read an email which revealed that one of the witness's staff members worked on the weekend of December 16 in relation to the waste collection tender contracts.
In response, the witness stated that nobody informed her that some of her staff members were working.
Additionally, Naidoo referred her to another email written by one of the managers, where staff members were being told that they had been selected to work overtime for the December 16 weekend.
In that email, they were also told that overtime would be paid. Abbu is copied on that email.
“But this (email) was not going to be used as a supporting email to HR (Human Resources) to grant overtime payments,” she said.
Naidoo asked her if, when she came back on leave, any of her staff had told her that they had not been paid for overtime, and she said no.
The State claims that Abbu approached his preferred waste collection companies instead of going through the tender evaluation process. Those companies are also charged in this matter.
nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za