Former social development minister and ANC Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini will have to wait another week to hear whether she will be acquitted of perjury.

Clad in a beige suit and sneakers, Dlamini appeared unfazed as she fiddled with her cellphone inside the dock while the defence and the state presented heads of argument in the Johannesburg magistrate’s court on Friday. 

Dlamini pleaded not guilty to the perjury charge, which emanated from a Constitutional Court inquiry into the payments fiasco at the SA Social Security Agency (Sassa), where she allegedly lied under oath. 

She denied lying under oath or intentionally giving false evidence, saying if that had been the case she did so unknowingly.  

On November 26 her attorney, Tshepiso Mphahlane, made an application for his client to be acquitted of the alleged crime, saying the state’s evidence was poor and could not be relied upon.

He advanced the same argument on Friday.

“Our submission is that criminal conviction cannot be based on semantics, the use of words, it should not be equivocal that the accused intentionally presented false evidence ...” he said.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Jacob Serepo argued that it was clear Dlamini took a conscious decision to give false evidence. This after a state witness, former Sassa CEO Thokozani Magawaza, testified that Dlamini would often interfere with work streams and internal operations of the agency.

Serepo also challenged Dlamini's admission that if she had given false evidence, she did so without knowing that she had.

“We submit there is overwhelming evidence against the accused, sufficient enough upon which a reasonable court, acting carefully may convict,” he said.  

Magistrate Betty Khumalo requested to be given until December 17 to make a judgment on the matter. 

“There have been very thorough and extensive arguments and responses, which I think really need some measure of consideration. For me to haphazardly decide my finding at this point will be a miscarriage of justice,” said Khumalo.   

The matter relates to repeated extensions of an unlawful tender awarded to Cash Paymaster Services (CPS) to distribute the department’s social grants in 2017. 

The court was forced to extend the contract with CPS even though it was found to be illegal. Dlamini was accused of failing to make sure that Sassa was capacitated to pay out social grants after the contract with CPS expired. 

At the time of the crisis, Judge Bernard Ngoepe found Dlamini's conduct had been “reckless and grossly negligent”, he also said she was evasive when answering questions and that she would “unjustifiably answer with 'I don't know/remember' to important questions”. 

Shortly after the court proceedings were adjourned, Dlamini was in the company of church congregants, who gathered to pray for her “innocence” to be proven, and members of the ANCWL who chanted struggle songs with some holding placards reading “Hands off our president”. 

Members of the ANC's Radical Economic Transformation (RET) faction, including former North West premier Supra Mahumapelo and suspended uMkhonto weSizwe spokesperson Carl Niehaus, were also presented at court — claiming that the charge against Dlamini was politically-motivated.

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