Her vivid blue and yellow outfit radiated through the dark light of the courtroom as former 'Madam Speaker' Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula entered the Pretoria Magistrates Court at 11am on Thursday.
Escorted by police officials and her own personal entourage, she walked in confidently, a small smile fixed on her face — straight into a barrage of photographers and journalists.
Seemingly unfazed by the clamour, she made her way to the dock of Court 8, which was filled to capacity.
The gallery’s front row was occupied by Mapisa-Nqakula’s close friends, colleagues and family, including her senior military officer husband Charles Nqakula and former speaker Baleka Mbete.
She gave them a brief smile before facing the magistrate while appearing unfazed by the flashing cameras and lenses in her face. Her husband and Mbete smiled back supportively.
After a failed attempt to interdict her arrest and gain access to the case docket, the former speaker resigned from her position as Speaker of the National Assembly, which she has held since August 2021, on Wednesday afternoon before heading to Lyttelton police station in Pretoria on Thursday morning.
While she was being processed before being transported to court, scores of media were stationed outside the court, to record her arrival.
Mapisa-Nqakula remained composed, and even seemed relaxed as state prosecutor Advocate Bheki Manyathi told the court she was charged with 12 counts of corruption and one of money laundering.
The career politician listened attentively as her legal representative advocate Graham Kerr-Phillips read out a summary of her 46-page affidavit listing why she should be released on bail.
He told the court that the state’s case against her was weak and a March 11 search and seizure raid at her home had yielded no evidence to corroborate its case. He slammed the state for relying “solely on the section 204 witness statement”, and insisted on disclosure of the docket, despite having failed in his earlier request at the high court.
In a bid to avoid jail time, Mapisa-Nqakula heavily criticised the country’s prisons for being overcrowded, riddled with violence and a “cruel punishment” which does not rehabilitate offenders.
The prisons were not safe and gang activities included organising “uninvited sexual contact” or conducting and facilitating the drug trade.
“The chief target of such are the old and young. Access to ablution and sanitation services is totally inadequate and the lack thereof contributes to the spread of disease,” Kerr-Phillips read out. “Access to medical facilities is virtually non-existent due to a lack of resources and underemployment. Recently, as a result of this problem, former president Jacob Zuma has been sent to a private facility and further has medical parole.
Not read out in court, but included in her affidavit, Mapisa-Nqakula said: “In short, I am advised that if one falls ill, if Panado is not a cure, one will die.”
Kerr-Phillips confirmed to the court that his client was on medication for hypertension. He continued to read that she felt the prisons violated inmates' right to one hour of exercise per day, saying it was ignored due to understaffing and overcrowding.
“The overarching impression is that the SA prisons are incapable of any form of rehabilitation because correctional staff are simply overwhelmed by the task of preventing inmates from killing each other.”
In her affidavit, she said: “In other words, SA prisons are in an environment where Darwin’s principle of survival of the fittest is tested against the backdrop of the absence of the enforcement of the rule of law. This is obviously inconsistent with the right to life.”
While she assured the court that she was not a flight risk and would not evade trial, she poked holes in the state’s case and their reliance on their witness statement.
She said the state's witness was reported in the Sunday Times as businesswoman Nombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, who had turned state witness after being charged with committing fraud of R100-million.
Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu is alleged to have colluded with her husband, deputy surgeon-general Noel Ndhlovu, in securing deals through her company Umkhombe Marine, which provided logistics services to the SA Defence Force.
Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu’s matter was struck off the roll last month by the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Court in exchange for immunity. She told investigators how Mapisa-Nqakula would request large amounts of money between 2016 and 2019 when she was defence force minister.
Mapisa-Nqakula said the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) would not give her information about what the section 204 witness had been promised in exchange for her testimony. She also denied WhatsApp messages allegedly between her and Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu where they spoke about wigs, which was allegedly code for bribes.
“While I was minister of defence, I played no part in the tender adjudication process and the state would argue that it is immaterial whether I actually did anything in return for any alleged gratification which I deny receiving,” she said in her affidavit.
According to the charge sheet, Umkhombe Marine was awarded a R104-million contract in February 2016 and another ‘replacement’ contract valued at R79-million in August that year.
Three months later, Mapisa-Nqakula allegedly requested the late secretary of defence Dr Sam Gulube approach Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu for R300,000, which was allegedly handed over in cash a few days later.
The former speaker is alleged to have requested 12 transactions between December 2016 and July 2019 totalling R4.5-million, with the majority of these requests taking place at her home in Bruma, Johannesburg. It is said that in September 2018, the former speaker made five requests for money.
Prosecutor Manyathi confirmed that though the amounts listed in the docket were only requests, such requests amount to gratification, which is criminal.
The state did not oppose bail. The matter will go to trial in the Pretoria high court due to the amount of money involved.
“A total of R2.1m was given to [Mapisa-Nqakula] by the witness. Based on that amount [of] R2.1m, I submit that R100,000 [bail] would not be unreasonable or disproportionate to the magnitude of the offence,” he said.
Magistrate Anna Oosthuizen granted bail at R50,000 and ordered Mapisa-Nqakula to hand in her passport. She is also ordered to not communicate or interfere with witnesses and the matter is to return to court on June 4, with the state expecting to bring forward a second accused person.
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