Johannesburg - The former head of the Black Business Council (BBC), who is embroiled in a R5.7 million theft case, has made a last-ditch attempt to have the charges against her dropped.
Danisa Baloyi, the BBC’s former president, who was also chairperson of the Gauteng Tender Board, filed representations to the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) director of public prosecutions office in Gauteng to have the two counts of theft and one of money laundering against her dropped.
Baloyi and her co-accused Dominic Ntsele, Hawa Khan and Abubaker Khan are accused of being part of an elaborate scheme to swindle R5.7m from the BBC.
This was after Baloyi, supposedly on behalf of the BBC, allegedly asked for sponsorship in March 2017 from the Airports Company of South Africa - from its then chief executive Bongani Maseko - ostensibly as funding for the black business lobby group.
Baloyi allegedly informed Maseko that the money should be paid into the account of Merit Energy - which both Hawa and Abubaker are directors of - as the company had apparently done work for the BBC.
Allegations are that Acsa, through Maseko, paid the money into Merit Energy’s account in April 2017 and May 2017 in two tranches, where Merit then transferred over R3m into the account of Incentive Driven Marketing’s account, of which Ntsele is the sole signatory.
Baloyi and her three co-accuseds’ trial, which was expected to begin at the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court on Monday stalled after the former BBC president’s representations to the Gauteng NPA last month, this according to State advocate Neville Mogagabe.
He said the State would not be able to proceed with the trial as it was awaiting the decision on whether charges would be dropped against Baloyi - the only accused to make representations.
“The State had its witness in court today , Mr Bongani Maseko,” he said.
“This indicates that we were ready to proceed with the trial.
“But we are waiting for the outcome of the representations,” Mogagabe said.
Christo Meiring, lawyer for all four of the accused, said he was aware of the delays, and did not object to the trial resuming next week.
All four accused indicated in sworn affidavits read out by Meiring in May that they would plead not guilty, and denied all allegations against them.
They said at the time that they would “submit at the trial that the charges stem from internal leadership struggles within the BBC”.
They are all out on bail.