The professional team driving the Roodefontein development ”set up” an official of the Western Cape’s environment and planning department to expose his personal interest in the matter, the regional court in George heard on Wednesday.
Former Western Cape premier Peter Marais and his former environment provincial minister, David Malatsi, stand accused of taking thousands of rands in bribes to pave the way for provincial approval of the R500-million golf estate in Plettenberg Bay’s Piesang Valley.
Prosecutor Louis van Niekerk told the court the state intended leading evidence from the Roodefontein project manager, Robert Browning, of the firm Proactive.
He said Browning had already told the Scorpions in an interview that the departmental case officer in George who dealt with the development, Dr Steve du Toit, had had ”personal interests” in the project.
Browning said the professional team had decided to ”set him up intentionally”, and told Du Toit — and no one else — that the man behind the development, multimillionaire Italian Count Riccardo Agusta, intended to pull out if the department did not approve it soon.
Within a day, Browning said, the professional team had a phone call from Du Toit’s friend Albie Burger, head of the Plettenberg Bay Environmental Forum, saying she had a friend in the United Kingdom who wanted to buy Roodefontein as the count was pulling out.
Van Niekerk said Browning maintained he had asked the independent environmental consultant working with the team, Cathy Avierinos, to tell Du Toit the count intended withdrawing.
However, Avierinos, speaking from the witness box, denied this.
”I’m not aware of any setups,” she said.
She did, however, recall a phone conversation with Browning in early 2002 in which the project manager told her the count would be pulling out if a decision was not forthcoming.
”I’m not aware of any personal interest of Steve’s in this particular matter,” she said.
She was however aware of pressures on him from his head office in Cape Town. Up to a certain point he had been happy with the information he was getting from the project team, but there was a ”sudden change” towards the end of 2001.
The court has already heard evidence that the professional team became frustrated at repeated requests for further information from the department, and that the George office allegedly mislaid the original application for approval of the development, a fact that only emerged months later.
Avierinos testified on Tuesday that she attended a meeting in Marais’s office in Cape Town where Browning complained to the premier about the delays, and Malatsi, under pressure from Marais, undertook to get a decision out of his department within days.
Earlier on Wednesday, magistrate Andre le Grange suspended proceedings when the decibel level of people holding conversations, court orderlies shouting out the names of accused, and wailing infants, in the corridor outside the courtroom, proved too much for him.
After half an hour of sitting at the start of the day, during which a court official, the investigating officer in the corruption case and even lead prosecutor Bruce Morrison went out into the corridor to plead for quiet, Le Grange had had enough and called a 10-minute adjournment.
”This noise is really annoying me,” he said. ”Perhaps the court orderly can arrange for somebody to stand outside and keep them away.”
When the court reconvened, Morrison’s colleague Van Niekerk told Le Grange that it had been arranged that a correctional services official would stand outside to ensure silence.
But the decibels soon rose again, and Le Grange complained: ”This noise level has reached a point where I can not take it any more.”
He said that during the tea adjournment Van Niekerk should either arrange another venue, or clear the corridor.
”My patience is running out,” he said.
After the tea break Van Niekerk said the senior public prosecutor was attending to the matter. — Sapa