By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Former SAA board chairperson Dudu Myeni. Photo Credit: Marietie Gericke.
The Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday postponed the case against former South African Airways (SAA) chairperson Dudu Myeni to June.
Myeni’s case was previously postponed in March for the state to consider various representations made by her legal team.
Her attorney, Nqabayethu Buthelezi, informed the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court that Myeni was ill and could not be present in court. Her absence forced the state to postpone the matter.
Now the case has since been postponed to 14 June.
A warrant of arrest has been issued against Myeni for her failure to appear in court, but will be on hold and only effected if she fails to arrive in court without providing a valid reason.
The state has charged Myeni with defeating or obstructing the administration of justice, with the alternative count of contravention of the commission after she outed a witness during her testimony at the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture in November 2020.
She revealed the identity of Mr X who previously implicated Myeni at the commission that she had instructed him to transfer R1 million into the account of the Jacob G Zuma Foundation.
At the time, Myeni claimed that Mr X was “a family member” before blurting his surname despite a warning from the commission’s chairperson Chief Justice Raymond Zondo not to repeat it.
The incident led to the commission lodging a criminal complaint against Myeni for revealing the identity of the witness.
Zondo had instructed Myeni that the person’s identity should not be made public and he was thus referred to as “Mr X”.
The chairperson explained that he took the decision to lodge the complaint after reviewing Myeni’s affidavit explaining her conduct when she recently identified Mr X at the commission.
He indicated that the commission wanted the police to investigate a possible contravention of regulation 9 of the inquiry’s regulations – which empowers Zondo to direct a witness’s identity be protected, or the Commission’s Act – which makes anyone who “wilfully hinders or obstructs” the commission’s performance, guilty of an offence.
Myeni may also be facing a separate criminal charge for pulling no-show at the commission despite being summoned to appear before the commission in May 2021.
Meanwhile, Solidarity have signaled its intention to lay charges against Myeni and 19 other people allegedly involved in state capture.
This includes former Transet and Eskom head Brian Molefe, former chairperson of Denel, Daniel Mantsha, former President Jacob Zuma, and the former chief executive of Denel, Zwelakhe Ntsepe.