Day of drama as former National Assembly speaker appears in court

Former National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula has formally been charged with 12 counts of corruption and money laundering and she has been released on R50 000 bail.

The dreaded day for her to appear in the dock arrived on Thursday, after she handed herself over to the Lyttelton police station in Pretoria early on Thursday morning.

She was detained in custody for about five hours before she was granted bail by the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.

She is due back in court on June 4.

In a surprise turn of event, and shortly before the end of the bail proceedings, the prosecution announced that the State is planning to add another accused to join Mapisa-Nqakula in the dock during the next court date.

Lead prosecutor Bheki Manyathi told magistrate Ann Oosthuizen that the prosecution wanted to add another accused and that they thus needed a postponement until June to finalise their plans in this regard.

He remained mum about who the second accused would be, but said the decision to add another accused followed the search and seizure operation at Mapisa-Nqakula’s home last month, when the State seized certain items. This led to further investigation, he said.

While the prosecution did not oppose bail for Mapisa-Nqakula, Manyathi did ask the magistrate to set the amount at R100 000 in light of the amount of R4.5 million involved in the alleged corruption charges.

Graham Kerr-Phillips, the advocate who appeared on behalf of Mapisa-Nqakula, however, stressed several times that she is now an ordinary pensioner, as she is no longer the Speaker.

He said in light of this, an amount of R100 000 was too steep for her to pay. He proposed that bail be set as R50 000, which the magistrate accepted.

Mapisa-Nqakula’s friends and family, who included her husband Charles Nqakula, who were sitting in the public gallery, looked relieved when bail was set at R50 000. It was said that this was the amount which her husband had brought to court to post as bail.

One of the bail conditions set for her is that she must surrender her passport and she may not travel abroad. The State said it would not curtail her travelling around the country.

It also accepted that she is not a flight risk and that, due to her age, she does have medical problems which would not warrant her remaining in custody.

Magistrate Oosthuizen made it clear to Mapisa-Nqakula that her bail could be revoked if she did not return to court on June 4. The former Speaker nodded her head and folded her hands together in a gesture of thanks.

While she was supported in court by her husband and friends, who included Baleka Mbete, she did not once look back to the public gallery to greet them. She also graciously endured the flashing of media cameras in her face, while she took her seat in the dock.

She appeared in the dock from an adjacent area to the court, where the holding cells are. She was brought into court by the State’s investigation team and the police and she was kept under watch until her bail was paid after the court proceedings.

zelda.venter@inl.co.za