The R220 million corruption trial against Mpumalanga’s former finance head, Leon Botha, was delayed on Monday as his defence team was not ready.

The trial had been scheduled to run for the week, but Magistrate Albertus le Roux was told that both the defence and state had agreed to postpone the trial for two weeks to allow the defence to finalise its preparations. The trial was then rescheduled for August 26.

Botha is currently out on R100 000 bail he was granted after his arrest in March.

Botha, who was also the province’s deputy director general at the time of the alleged fraud in 1997, has not yet been asked to plead on six counts of fraud and corruption involving R2,6 million he allegedly earned from a string of deals worth R220 million.

Botha was arrested by the Scorpions investigative unit on March 14 for allegedly illegally facilitating separate government investments of R30 million, R70 million and R120 million with various financial brokers in return for large kickbacks.

He allegedly duped provincial treasury head Louis van Aswegen in the process, and repeatedly lied to ensure that a friend, Pieter Basson, received a commission for placing the investments with Rand Merchant Bank’s (RMB) asset management division, as well as the Board of Executors (BoE), Coronation Management and Profas (Pty) Ltd.

The deals allegedly all included an unusually high 4% structuring fee, unnecessarily costing the taxpayers R8,8 million, of which his share was allegedly R2,6 million.

Botha also allegedly prematurely terminated two of the investments in 1997, costing the taxpayers an additional R3,1 million in penalty fees. It is alleged that the deals were designed to fund the province’s luxurious R680 million government complex at Riverside in Nelspruit, which has been dubbed ‘the palace’ by locals, after national government refused to grant permission for its construction.

Botha also apparently convinced colleagues that the province could bankroll the project by investing at least R120 million with local banks for five years. The money was instead used to purchase unit trusts without capital guarantees.

The scam was only investigated after national finance minister Trevor Manuel expressed concern and referred the matter to the Auditor General.

Botha previously admitted to splurging on a series of expensive properties, totalling roughly R1,1 million, at the same time as the investment deals were finalised. He insisted the houses and boats were all personally financed from his savings and were above board.

Zenzele Kuhlase, African Eye News Service (Nelspruit), August 12, 2002