OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Friday 6.00pm.
NEW National Party MP and former Cabinet minister Abe Williams, who faces more than 35 counts of fraud and corruption, should be axed immediately from Parliament, the African National Congress’ Western Cape leader Ebrahim Rasool said on Friday.
Rasool, who is being sued by Williams for almost R2 million for defamation linked to the fraud claims, welcomed the fact that the NNP politician had ”at last” been charged.
NNP spokesperson Francois Beukman said Williams would remain a MP pending the outcome of his trial.
He had resigned from all positions in the NNP’s parliamentary structures, such as deputy caucus chairman, with immediate effect, Beukman said.
Williams had informed NNP leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk and Western Cape Premier Gerald Morkel that he would stand trial in the Cape Regional Court.
A final decision about Williams’ future as an MP would be made after the judicial process had taken its course.
He did not take up his seat in Parliament for Friday’s state of the nation address by President Thabo Mbeki.
Earlier, on Friday morning, he appeared briefly in the Cape Town Regional Court and was charged with four counts of corruption, and fraud as an alternative to two of the charges.
Williams resigned in 1996, after it was alleged that he had taken kickbacks from companies offering tenders for a new computer system to control pension fraud.
The company in question was a subsidiary of state arms corporation Denel.
The matter has been under investigation by the Office for Serious Economic Offences since 1996, and it was Oseo advocate Gerda Ferreira who proffered the detailed charge sheet to the court on Friday.
Forty charges have been levelled against Williams, and the case will be prosecuted by Oseo’s advocate Jannie van Vuuren.
Before his hearing Williams said that the charges did not relate to his former department.
William was a Minister of Education in the old House of Representatives in the tricameral Parliament, despite having been expelled from the University of the Western Cape for cheating in exams.
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