Court fight over Mettler
There is uncertainty over whether suspended Nelson Mandela Bay city manager Johann Mettler will take to the witness stand in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court on Friday.
Mettler is due to testify in the multimillion-rand fraud case linked to the alleged siphoning off of funds given to the municipality by the National Treasury for the Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS).
On trial are Mandisa Mkasa, former director of Laphum’ilanga, Nadia Gerwel, former assistant director in the metro’s finance department, businesswoman Andrea Wessels, her events company Zeranza, exAccess Management CEO Stephan Pretorius and former EP Rugby boss Cheeky Watson.
They have all pleaded not guilty to 44 counts, including fraud and money laundering.
On Thursday, prosecutor Tjaard van Zyl was about to call Mettler to the witness stand when the defence for some of the accused objected.
Advocate Terry Price said he needed time to prepare and finalise his objection to Mettler being a witness.
“Mettler is not entitled to testify. He is suspended as municipal manager and I do not know in what capacity will he be testifying.
“I am not certain he is competent,” Price said.
Advocate Francois van Zyl SC, who is representing Watson, expressed his unhappiness over the delay and suggested perhaps another witness on the list might be called.
To this, Tjaard van Zyl said most of his witnesses were already on holiday.
Earlier on Thursday, Clinton Hardley, former EP Rugby chief accountant, told how alarmed he had been when he came across an article in a local newspaper that referred to the Pikoli Report.
The report probed how the Integrated Public Transport System budget was misused.
“Cheeky called me to his office to bring documents relating to the R2.9m invoice.
“He took a look at the documents and remarked ‘Thank goodness, it’s not my signature on the document’,” he said.
He claimed Watson instructed him to authorise payment (R2.9m) to Access Management for a service provider (Zeranza) which was not on the municipal data base.