A WITNESS in the corruption case of ex-minister Bongani Bongo and 17 others told the court there was nothing inappropriate about services which were rendered by Blessing Singwane.
Simon Setswale, who had a joint venture with Singwane, testified in the Nelspruit Commercial Crimes court on Tuesday, 27 June.
He told the court that he and Singwane formed a joint venture where they were awarded a tender by the Department of Human Settlement to do the verification of the transfer of RDP houses.
Singwane is also an accused in the matter.
He acted as a conveyancer for the Department of Human Settlements.
"We were appointed for the registration of RDP in the Nkangala region which involved seven municipalities. My law firm was responsible for doing verification for the beneficiaries. We would liaise with the municipalities to confirm if the people are in the human settlement system.
"We would then go physically to those occupied RDP houses and confirm that the occupants are indeed the persons who are in the human settlements system," he said.
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He said that once all documentation was obtained, he would hand it over to Singwane partners to do the registration of the RDP houses to the actual beneficiaries.
Setswale said the joint venture was terminated automatically after 36 months as it was for a specific purpose.
He said there were no arrangements to use the joint venture of the bank account they were using.
"At first, we opened a joint venture account, and that's where all invoices were issued, and was specific for the registration and transferring of RDP houses. At a later stage, when the department approached us for a different meeting, I had an informal discussion with Mr Singwane.
"I said in view that my law firm is just tasked with doing verification of RDPs and verification of beneficiaries, these normal transfers would not require our involvement as our law firm and anything that would do with straight transfers he can handle, and it would not need me or the joint venture, "he said.
The trial will continue Thursday, 28 June, for further hearing.
