The Durban high Court refused on Tuesday a State application for a revenue service official to testify in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.

Rob Reid, who has already supplied the State with an affidavit, will no longer go into the witness box after Judge Hillary Squires ruled that "further evidence was not pressingly needed".

Reid, based at the SA Revenue Service (Sars) in Durban, was to give evidence relating to tax evasion and keeping Sars records -- alternative charges to a fraud charge against Shaik.

On Monday, the court heard that an employee of Sars could only reveal information in the course of his duty or by order of a judge.

Squires said testifying in Shaik's trial would not be in the line of Reid's duty and he would not issue an order for him to testify.

He said the court had already heard evidence relating to the matter, and "a revenue official is a witness of last resort".

The first witness to give evidence on Tuesday was Suleman Suleman, who testified how Shaik and Deputy President Jacob Zuma, an MEC in KwaZulu-Natal at the time, had rented a flat from his wife at Mellington (sic - Malington) Court.

Suleman said there was only an oral agreement on the rental of the flat. Shaik had referred him to Zuma when the rent was not forthcoming.

Suleman was followed in the witness box by Olivier Fleischer, a French language expert from the University of Cape Town, who testified about the authenticity of the so-called encrypted fax which records a bribe of R500 000 per annum for Zuma.

Kessie Moodley, the director of Workers' College, which provides training to the labour movement, testified that the college had no idea it was a shareholder in Shaik's Nkobi Holdings until this surfaced in the media.

The chairman of Workers' College, Jubulani Mgcobo (sic - Jabulani Ngcobo) , said when Nkobi applied for the contract to manufacture South Africa's credit card-style driver's licences, Shaik's brother Yunus suggested the college be allocated ten percent shares in Nkobi as a broad-based empowerment group *1.

There was no formal agreement, he said. Workers' College was never involved in any of the company's matters and never received any financial statements.

Mgcobo (sic) is the last State witness to give evidence in the Shaik trial this year. The case adjourns on Tuesday and is expected to resume on January 31, 2005.

With acknowledgement to Wendy Jasson da Costa and Sapa.

*1 Viva, BEE *2, Viva *3

*2 BEE = Bumiputera Enrichment by Empowerment, especially of your friends and relatives.

*3 "Viva" - literally Spanish for Live, colloquially used as "Long Live", e.g. Viva il Ducé, Long Live the fascist dictator. *4

*4 Worth two bonus points in the Applied Bumiputera exam at the Sultin Institute of Cryptography and Loanations.*5

*5 There a PhD (Dishonoris Clausa) going abegging at the Esteemed Institute for a project and 10 000 word thesis on the subjected Applied Bumiputera - South Africa's Depressing *6 Experience.

*6 For nearly all its 43 million citizens, except about 200 belonging to the Same Old Suspects Club.