PRETORIA – A bid by North West businessman Suleiman Carrim’s legal representatives to bring an application for a postponement of his testimony before the Madlanga Commission has once again been rejected.
This time, Carrim’s lawyer, Advocate Rafik Bhana SC argued they needed adequate time to go through additional documents, which included Medicare24’s bank statements which they received from the commission’s lawyer’s early hours on Tuesday.
Commission chairperson Mbuyiseli Madlanga denied for the application to be brought forward and instead allowed for a short adjournment for the legal team time to consult with Carrim.
At the beginning of the proceedings, Bhana argued they have not been given enough time to review the additional statements.
“What was provided to us are several bank statements and a spreadsheet, which obviously the commission had prepared well in advance of this morning. Somebody had done this investigation," he told the commission.
He said they have continuously complained about having documents kept from them, adding that on 7 and 8 March they sent letters to the commission asking for all documents.
However, the commission’s chief evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson SC opposed the suggestion, laying the blame on Carrim for filing his statement late and failing to disclose some payments.
“The reason that these documents were made available to his legal team today and not earlier was that first, he filed his statement late. Secondly, in his statement he didn’t disclose these payments. Thirdly, he didn’t disclose he had sight of the bank transactions on Medicare24. If he had performed his obligations, they would have had these bank statements more than a week ago,” Chaskalson argued.
Carrim will continue to give testimony. Matters relating to the late additional documents will stand over to another day yet to be determined.