Thoshan Panday, standing trial in the Durban high court on racketeering, fraud and corruption charges relating to alleged graft in a SAPS accommodation 2010 Soccer World Cup tender, has formally requested documents he believes will prove then police national commissioner Bheki Cele signed off on the deal.
Panday is charged with former policemen Navin Madhoe and Ashwin Narianpershad, former KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Mmamonnye Ngobeni, four of Panday's relatives and his assistant. They are alleged to have colluded to ensure Panday’s companies scored lucrative SAPS contracts worth R47m.
They have yet to plead to the 237 charges contained in the weighty indictment.
Instead, they have made several requests for “further information” from the state to prepare their defences and complained they have not received a satisfactory response.
On Thursday, their lawyers collectively tabled another request for further information.
Advocate Jimmy Howse, for Panday and his relatives, said they discovered last weekend there were more documents which had not been disclosed to them.
The written request, handed in to court, states they want all reports, recommendations, audio recordings and minutes of the bid adjudication committee on the proposed service providers for the accommodation contract.
They also want “documents placed before erstwhile Cele, on the strength of which he approved the appointment of service providers”, and a copy of a “22-page dossier” which was provided to Cele for comment.
A source close to the defence team said these documents could show Cele had signed off on the tender awards which would raise the question as to why he was not also charged if there was something wrong with the process.
Prosecutor advocate Dorian Paver said it had been agreed the state would respond to the request by July. If the defence was not happy, it would bring a formal application to compel the production of the documents when the accused next appeared in court at the end of August.
At the time of the alleged offences, Madhoe (who is accused number one in the racketeering case) and Narianpershad were stationed at supply chain management at the provincial head office.
It is alleged they “actively associated themselves” to manipulate procurement processes so that Panday and his companies won the contracts.
In return, it is alleged Panday gifted Madhoe accommodation at the Oyster Box Hotel and paid for him and his family to fly to Cape Town and for their accommodation at a total cost of R89,000.
It is alleged Panday paid R43,500 for Narianpershad’s son’s Varsity College fees, bought him a Trojan treadmill for R7,000 and paid for his accommodation at two hotels, totalling almost R60,000.
Panday is also alleged to have paid about R21,000 for a “surprise birthday party” for Ngobeni’s husband, Brig Lucas Ngobeni.
Ngobeni is also charged with obstructing or attempting to defeat the course of justice when she allegedly instructed Brig Laurence Kemp, the head of provincial financial expenditure, and then KwaZulu-Natal Hawks boss Johan Booysen, to stop an investigation into possible procurement fraud.
Madhoe and Panday are also charged with corruption in relation to allegedly offering Booysen R2m to change a date on a document so it would appear information had been obtained before subpoenas were obtained.
They are also charged with attempting to extort Booysen to predate the report by showing him photographs which would allegedly implicate him in the so=called “Cato Manor killings”, threatening they would be used against him unless he complied with their demands.
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