The fraud and corruption trial of a former mayor and municipal manager of the Creighton-based Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma Municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands has been postponed to November.
Former Mayor Nomagugu Luzulane and the then municipal manager Nthabiseng Mokoena-Brown allegedly misappropriated funds from a government programme to pay for a funeral in 2012.
They were arrested in March of last year.
The trial was scheduled to start this week in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court but has been postponed to the 14th of November due to a full court roll.
The state alleges that Luzulane had the municipality pay out a total of R60 000 in 2012 under the pretense that it was for Operation Mbo – a provincial programme to help the poor.
According to the indictment the money was actually used by Luzulane to pay for a funeral.
The owner of the company is then alleged to have paid back R50 000 of the total amount back to her in cash.
The state alleges that she and Mokoena-Brown were both involved in the scam.
Mokoena-Brown resigned a few months after the alleged fraud when an investigation into her allegedly false qualifications was instituted.
Luzulane was recalled by the African National Congress (ANC) in 2016.
