Joy as Konza acquitted of fraud

There were tears, screams of delight, hugging and applause when former Amathole district municipality mayor Nomasikizi Konza and four others were found not guilty of R2.5m fraud at the East London regional court on Friday.

Konza, and her former co-accused embraced each other for a lengthy period when the “not guilty verdict” rang out in court.

The state argued that Konza had “bullied” a number of municipal officials into signing off payment vouchers authorising the transfer of more than R2.5m into the accounts of Miss Amathole Heritage beauty pageant in 2014 and 2015. Minutes after magistrate Nomthandazo Vabaza brought an end to the high-profile case that ran for four years, the former accused said they would sue the state for R50m for wrongful arrest and malicious prosecution.

Those acquitted were Konza, former ADM ANC councillor, Nanziwe Rulashe, who organised the beauty pageant, Rulashe’s younger sister Anita, Sigcine Mbixana and Mawande Njeza, who were found not guilty on all three counts of fraud.

“Our arrest was fishy and prosecution malicious, hence we instructed our lawyers to sue the state for nothing less than R50m,” Rulashe said.

The three charges related to three payments, one for R150,000, R840,000 and a R1.19m payment, made by ADM towards hosting of the pageant in 2015.

Konza had faced an additional charge of conspiracy to commit fraud.

The state had alleged that the funds were irregularly siphoned off under pretext of funding the annual beauty pageant, with some of the funds used to buy two cars registered in Rulashe’s name.

Delivering judgment, Vabaza said the state had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt, saying its case was “very weak and based on suspicions”.

“Suspicions alone are not enough and you cannot bring them to court, but need to investigate them and only bring evidence,” said Vabaza, adding that she had found no evidence suggesting the group was guilty of any fraud.

During trial, the state called six witnesses, many of whom were ADM employees. Vabaza dismissed evidence presented by some witnesses as inadmissible, while she ruled that evidence presented by Hawks investigator Captain Luphumlo Lwana, “carried very little weight”.

Vabaza said her decision came after she was convinced by some state witnesses during their court testimony, “who collaborated with each other that normal processes were followed when the donation was made, proving that there were no irregularities in how things were done”.

Konza could not hide her outpouring of emotions, saying the lengthy trial had affected her political career, her health, and well-being of her family.

“I knew from the beginning that this was a plot to destroy me and prevent my political growth. This was done to clip my wings in relation to my career.”

Konza said one of the negatives in this entire ordeal was that her last-born child had to drop out of school due to lack of finances, “while family had to pay most of the bills”.

She said her arrest “on the eve of the 2016 local government elections”, was meant to ensure that she did not don the mayoral chain again.