Deputy president Jacob Zuma met Schabir Shaik and Alain Thetard, the South African boss of French arms company Thomson CSF, at his official residence in Durban on March 10, 2000.

This was the evidence on Thursday from Shaik in his Durban High Court fraud and corruption trial.

The state earlier handed in as evidence a two-page extract from Thetard's diary which indicated a meeting on March 11.

However, Shaik said it was moved to Friday the 10th and that the meeting lasted 20 to 25 minutes.

Zuma was previously asked in parliament if he had met Thetard on March 11 2000 or at any other specified dates. His reply had been that he had not met with Thetard on the 11th.

Shaik said the meeting was called because he was an ambassador for Zuma's Education Trust Fund and that he wanted to ask Thetard for a donation for this fund.

He said at that stage his "relationship with the French was becoming increasingly distrustful" which was why he wanted Thetard to meet Zuma regarding the request.

Shaik said he found himself in a position where he was asking for funds from a group "for which I was losing respect."

The distrust came as a result of a disagreement because he felt his Nkobi group should get workshare rights and benefits from African Defence Systems as a result of obtaining a defence contract.

The state previously alleged that a so-called encrypted fax recording a bribe of half a million rand per annum for Zuma was born out of this meeting between Zuma, Shaik and Thetard.

This bribe was allegedly in exchange for protection during investigations into arms deal irregularities.

On Thursday Shaik told the court he had no knowledge of the fax and he did not know what possessed Thetard to have written the fax.

On Thursday Shaik also blamed his financial management team for the irregular write-off of money as Prodiba Development Costs and the creation of a non-distributable reserve in the books of his Nkobi group of a companies.

"The auditors must take responsibility for the advice they give companies like ourselves. The laws that protect them are unacceptable," said Shaik.

He said at the time the transactions took place, he had no idea what a non-distributable reserve was and that his financial management team had only consulted him on "exceptionally rare instances". Shaik said he could not remember a meeting with auditor Ahmed Paruk at his offices where those entries were discussed.

Shaik said he "emphatically" denied that this meeting did occur and said it was "scandalous" to suggest that he was advised of the write-off.

He said he had not tried to deceive anyone and had relied on the expertise of his accountants and auditors to help him and "did not get myself involved in detailed accounting."

Shaik said he had a limited knowledge of book-keeping and that the last time he had attempted this was in high school and he did not do too well.

He said at no stage did his financial management team come back to him and tell him to reconsider what he had put in his annual financial statements in 2000.

He said he had no idea what the tax implications of a write-off were and that it was too much for him to be a businessman, accountant and engineer *1.

Shaik said when his financial director, Colin Isaacs, eventually told him there was a problem because of incorrect accounting entries he "was disappointed and shocked" and received counsel from his legal advisor, Reeves Parsee.

He also took advice from advocate Nirmal Singh, SC, who said it was acceptable for the transaction to be reversed.

Last year auditor Ahmed Paruk told the court that Shaik had told them about the development costs.

During her testimony Shaik's former accountant, Celia Bester, told the court that she constantly told Shaik that his business was in overdraft and on the brink of bankruptcy.

Shaik said if he was as conservative as accountants were he would not be in business today. Shaik said his Nkobi Holdings was currently in a "pretty healthy cash surplus position."

With acknowledgements to Wendy Jasson da Costa and Sapa.

*1 In his CV and marketing info, Shaik claimed to have, inter alia a BSc(Eng), MSc(Eng) and an MBA. An accounting module is compulsory in the MBA.

Either he knows much more about accounting than he is now acknowledging, or he doesn't have an MBA?

Or an MSc(Eng) or a BSc(Eng) ?

Furthermore, his internal management accountant, Celia Bester, testified that he knew quite about the management accounts of the Nkobi Group.

He also claimed to be an accomplished author in certain business areas.

But there again, I suppose one could have a Nobel Prize for economics and not be able to balance one's own accounts - or visa versa.