Zuma due in court again on charges related to arms deal
Former president Jacob Zuma will be back in court on Friday to face charges of graft. It will be Zuma’s second appearance in the High Court in Durban. The charges are the same as those against him that were dropped in 2009.
His lawyer, Michael Hulley, has reportedly written to the National Prosecuting Authority for a stay of prosecution on the 16 charges of fraud, corruption, money laundering and racketeering.
This comes after all legal briefs were cancelled, as Zuma did not have the means to pay for it, and after he missed his own deadline to take the decision to charge him on review. His ability to afford defence counsel was compounded by an application brought by the DA in which it asked the court to order that Zuma pay back the state money that was spent trying to avoid facing the 16 charges.
The charges relate to 783 questionable payments the former president allegedly received in connection with the country’s controversial multibillion-rand arms deal.
In Parliament on Monday the Financial and Fiscal Commission will host a media briefing on its annual submission for the division of revenue for 2019-20.
The theme of the submission is re-engineering the intergovernmental fiscal relations system for national development in a fiscally constrained environment, based on the commission’s view that “business as usual” policies and interventions will fail to achieve the poverty and inequality reduction targets set for 2030.
On Tuesday, the standing committee on public accounts conducts a hearing on the Treasury’s integrated financial management system.
The Treasury has been accused of squandering R1bn on the system, which has failed to get off the ground more than a decade after it was first mooted. Approved by the Cabinet in 2005, it was meant to resolve financial system glitches and replace ageing and fragmented financial, supply chain, payroll and human resource management systems.
The Department of Mineral Resources will on Wednesday brief the portfolio committee on mineral resources on the amended Mining Charter and the exact targets mining companies are expected to meet in 2017-18.
On Thursday, the ad hoc committee on the funding of political parties will be briefed by the Treasury and the Electoral Commission of SA on the Political Party Funding Bill.