Deputy president Jacob Zuma was not the only minister Schabir Shaik bankrolled, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday.

This emerged during the testimony and cross-examination of Celia Bester, a former accountant at Shaik's Nkobi group of companies.

She said Zuma was not the only minister who received money from Shaik and all he could be paying them for was "political connectivity."

In her evidence on Tuesday, Bester said she had resigned because she was unhappy that payments to Zuma and other ministers were written off as development costs in Nkobi's books at a time when the company was severely cash-strapped.

She described it as "pure bribery" and said there was no other logical explanation for the payments.

In her resignation letter to Shaik dated December 14, 1999, she said: "All I have seen to date is enrichment for yourself and certain ministers."

On Wednesday defence advocate Francois van Zyl challenged her, saying her conclusion was wrong and that no bribe money had ever been paid to Zuma.

"I'm entitled to my opinion," said Bester.

She said Nkobi was not surviving, that money was going out of the company when they never had their own money, and that it was going to ministers when the company itself was battling.

"Why were they getting paid money?" she asked.

"I'm talking about Mr Zuma" Van Zyl replied sternly.

He asked if she knew that there was a revolving loan agreement of R2 million between Zuma and Shaik as well as two other acknowledgements of debt or that Zuma had repaid some of the money before she had joined Nkobi.

Bester said she was not aware of this.

The court also has a financial statement in its possession which indicates at least five payments and handwritten next to it the initials MM. The initials were allegedly written by Shaik.

Further down the statement there are more handwritten notes saying, "inv. MM invoices Flisane Inv."

Flisane is apparently the travel company owned by the wife of former transport minister Mac Maharaj.

Maharaj was transport minister at the time when an Nkobi subsidiary, Pro Con Africa, won a tender for the N3 toll road.

They later also tendered as part of a group and were awarded the Prodiba contract, to manufacture South Africa's credit card driver's licences.

Van Zyl asked Bester what she knew about the relationship between Shaik and Zuma at the time of her resignation.

She said Shaik had told her they were personal friends, that he was Zuma's financial advisor and that he was helping Zuma out because Zuma could not handle his finances and got into trouble with all his wives.

Shaik's charges include an alleged attempt to solicit a R500 000 per annum bribe for Zuma from French arms company Thomsons in exchange for protection during investigations into irregularities in South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal.

The state also alleges that the R1,2 million Shaik gave Zuma was not a loan but a bribe in return for Zuma's political influence.

The state's next witness, handwriting expert Marius Rheeder, is expected to take the stand on Thursday morning.

The state says he will deal with the so-called encrypted fax which records an alleged arms deal bribe for Zuma.

With acknowledgement to Wendy Jasson da Costa and Sapa.