South Africa’s former speaker of Parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, will on Tuesday return to the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court over charges of corruption.
The former minister of defence was released on R50,000 bail in April after she appeared before Magistrate Anna Oosthuizen in a packed Pretoria Magistrate’s Court.
Although the State set the bail at R100,000, Mapisa-Nqakula pleaded with the court, that she was now a pensioner and could only afford a maximum of R50,000.
Oosthuizen ordered that Mapisa-Nqakula hand over her passport to the investigators. In an update in April, the Investigating Directorate (ID) of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said Mapisa-Nqakula had complied by handing over her passport to authorities.
Mapisa-Nqakula had also been provided with the list of witnesses whom the State planned to call to substantiate the multimillion-rand corruption charge against her.
“The passport was handed in, and list of witnesses was provided to her (Mapisa-Nqakula),” said spokesperson for the ID, Henry Mamothame at the time.
Mapisa-Nqakula was also directed to not contact the State’s witnesses – directly or indirectly. The matter was postponed to June 4.
Mapisa-Nqakula appeared In court in April after handing herself over to police at the Lyttelton police station in Tshwane.
That charges against the former Speaker were 12 counts of corruption under PRECA (Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act) and one of money laundering under POCA (Prevention of Organised Crime Act) for soliciting R4.5 million from a defence contractor.
The State’s case is that despite soliciting R4.5 million, Mapisa-Nqakula received R2.5 million and the prosecution told the court that it knows “what the money received was used for”.