Former ANC MP Vincent Smith. (Photo by Papi Morake/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
The voluminous docket in the new R28-million tax fraud charges slapped on former ANC MP Vincent Smith, which is in addition to his fraud and corruption charges involving former Bosasa executive Angelo Agrizzi, has further delayed his case.
Smith, who appeared in the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court on Wednesday, asked for a three-month postponement so that his legal team can study the updated case docket the state has compiled against him, and so that he can consult tax experts.
Smith, along with his company Euroblitz, was initially arrested in October 2020 for an alleged R800 000 bribe he received from Agrizzi. This was allegedly for the ANC politician to pay for his daughter’s tertiary studies in Wales. Smith allegedly received the bribe during the period 2009 to 2014, when he chaired parliament’s correctional services portfolio committee.
Bosasa received contracts worth about R1-billion from the correctional services department in deals the state alleges were rife with corruption, the result of the Watson family, which owned Bosasa, flexing its political connections.
In January, during Smith’s last court appearance, the state introduced new tax fraud and money laundering charges against him and Euroblitz for the “failure to disclose taxable income from 9 March 2009 [to] 11 July 2018, totalling R28-million”.
It has also emerged that Smith received a slew of alleged “gratifications” that, the state claims, he failed to declare in parliament, including security upgrades to his private home that were allegedly sponsored by Bosasa.
“He further faces corruption charges by accepting further gratifications from Waterfall Golf Estate and CLIDET 69. The accused also faces charges for accepting cash transferred into his bank account and his company from Bosasa and other people unknown to the state,” said Sindisiwe Seboka, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigating Directorate, which is prosecuting the matter.
“Additional charges include failure to disclose to the Parliament’s Register of Members’ Interest the gratifications, cash deposits and money that was paid to him by Waterfall Golf Estate and CLIDET 69. The Investigating Directorate was able to enrol the further tax charges through help from the South African Revenue Services,” Seboka added.
Altogether, Smith faces charges of tax fraud, money laundering, corruption and breach of the Financial Intelligence Centre Act.
He was initially charged alongside Agrizzi, but they were separated as co-accused because of Agrizzi’s reported ill health, which his lawyer, Mannie Witz, said had cost the former Bosasa executive more than R3.3-million in medical fees.
Agrizzi, who admitted to being a racist and a societal delinquent during his state capture inquiry testimony before Chief Justice Raymond Zondo in 2019 and 2020, appeared in court last Friday, 1 April, but his case was postponed to May to obtain a high court date for trial proceedings to begin.
The state also acquired the services of a pulmonologist to assess Agrizzi’s respiratory health problems. During a court appearance last year, which Agrizzi did not attend, Witz said the health issues had forced his client to train for five months just to be able to walk his daughter down the aisle when she got married in May last year.
The state claims that Agrizzi, on behalf of Bosasa, bribed Smith “in exchange for his influence as the then chairperson of parliament’s oversight committee on correctional services”.
Both Smith and Agrizzi are out on bail.
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