Former Eskom CEO, Matshela Koko, his wife and daughters as well as Middelburg attorney Chris Coetzee were part of eight accused who appeared in the Middelburg Magistrate’s Court yesterday to have a multi-billion-rand fraud and money laundering case connected to the construction of Kusile Power Station, struck from the court roll.

Compelling arguments were raised by the defence teams for Koko, his wife Mosima, daughters Koketso Aren and Thato Choma and others in the regional court, with the accused requesting not only for the case to be stricken from the roll, but that it should only be reinstated on written instruction by the Attorney General.

The state countered that it was ready to proceed with trial in the high court, where the matter will be referred to once racketeering charges are added.

The case sees 18 accused facing a slew of charges relating to an Eskom contract awarded to Swiss-based Engineering company Asia Brown Boveri (ABB).

The alleged fraud, corruption and money laundering charges stem from contracts that were all approved during the construction of Eskom’s Kusile Power Plant.

It is alleged that Koko promised ABB further contracts worth billions.

ABB agreed to return R1.5b to Eskom but has since said it would ringfence R6b to cover further costs as investigations into more irregularities progress.

It is alleged that Koko’s family especially, benefited from massive kickbacks.

During yesterday’s proceedings the court, which started an oversight process on the state’s slow progress to proceed to trial, wanted to know why the case should not be struck from the roll until the state is clear and convincing that its investigation, running since 2017, had been concluded.

Arrests in the enormous investigation were only made in October 2022.

Defence teams argued that the matter has been on the roll for almost a full year and that no further postponements should be granted.

The state asked for a further postponement of four months, despite the court having ruled in March, that the state must present arguments as to why the case must not be struck from the roll by September 4.

A further continuance was granted until yesterday for the court to decide whether to strike the case from the roll until the state is ready to proceed with trial.

The defence argued that the court would be in contempt of its own order by granting further postponements.

Defence teams argued that the accused were being vilified by continued and intense media coverage, with the state later arguing that Koko himself had been smooching with the media, bringing widespread attention to the case and himself.

The defence also argued that extradition processes for accused and witnesses in the UK, Germany and the US could take up to three years, further eroding the rights to a speedy trial for the accused.

The state countered that the case did not hinge on the presence of the overseas accused and witnesses, saying it was ready to proceed with trial, while also already having applied for racketeering charges to be added.

The state, however, conceded that six material witness statements still had to be obtained from foreign role players.

Defence teams were adamant that the state was abusing the court to continue with investigations, and that the state could not present ironclad timelines of outstanding matters like data reports, after the resignation of a data analyst, resulting in the appointment of a new analyst last month.

The state is in possession of more than 14 terabytes of data, running into more than 80 million individual pieces of reading materials.

The state said it would mark specific materials for defence teams relevant to its case, while also supplying the necessary keyword search engines for their own perusal of related files.

Only eight of the 18 accused arrested so far were present in court for the unreasonable delay application.

The matter was postponed to September 29 for a ruling.