Deputy President Jacob Zuma and his financial adviser Schabir Shaik were a "package deal" to such an extent that "where offence might have been caused to one, it might have reflected back on the other".

This is how John Dwyer, formerly with Absa Private Bank in Durban, explained the reasons why bank officials granted both Zuma and Shaik facilities they did not qualify for.

The two were granted private banking facilities because Absa officials feared the bank would lose government accounts if it rejected their applications.

Both former and current Absa employees told the Shaik corruption trial in the Durban High Court this week that they believed they had "no option" but to accept the two as Private Bank clients.

Dwyer told the court that in 2001 he had rejected Shaik's and Zuma's application to have their accounts moved from the Absa business centre to the Private Bank. The minimum entry requirement for the latter was a net asset value of R10-million and investable assets of R2-million, something neither man had.

Their banking history — Shaik had had 15 unauthorised overdrafts in 12 months and Zuma had a judgement against him by Standard Bank — would have normally disqualified them.

However, at a meeting with other Absa officials in April 2001, Dwyer was given documentation which made it clear that "Nallie Bosman [the former Absa chief executive] has identified VP Zuma as a strategic client".

Bosman, Dwyer said, had wanted Zuma to become an Absa client because of his "political profile" and the "supposed prospect" of his receiving a R5-million pension in 2004.

Zuma's application forms, he said, contained a note written by Brenda Madgwick, the Absa marketer who invited Shaik and Zuma to join the Private Bank, that Zuma was "an influential person who has stated his support for Absa; we need black clients".

Dwyer said Absa and most other major banks conducted "significant" business with various levels of the government. "The fact that we had now established this close relationship ... with ... the deputy president of the country made any potential rebuff look quite delicate ... we would not want to be putting ourselves in a light where ... we were seen to be jeopardising those relationships."

A memorandum Dwyer wrote on the meeting stated that "the reaction of Shaik in particular, and quite likely also Zuma, would be extremely negative and quite possibly very detrimental to the group, if we then went to tell them that we could not accommodate them in the Private Bank".

The memorandum added that "bearing in mind the sensitive political nature of the relationship between the [Absa] group and the clients, I decided then and there that we actually have no option but to accept them".

Dwyer then described Shaik and Zuma as a "package deal".

He added that many Absa Private Bank clients had financial advisers, but "we don't take them [the advisers] into the Private Bank as clients".

Dwyer said the bank was also concerned that if it didn't give Shaik what he wanted, he would use his influence to stop Zuma investing his pension with Absa.

"The retention of that relationship with Zuma might well have been contingent on us making sure that we work together with the financial adviser [Shaik]," Dwyer said.

Absa Private Bank credit manager Ian McLeod said he rejected the applications by Shaik and Zuma as he felt the bank would eventually suffer losses because of the duo's high risk ratings. However, he was repeatedly overruled.

Evidence was also led that Zuma charged a total of R900 to his Absa garage card at an Empangeni garage in five transactions over two days. Zuma also made 16 transactions of around R200 each over a 40-day period using the same card.

Madgwick said she went over Dwyer's head when he rejected the men's applications.

Absa was awarded KwaZulu-Natal's accounts in 1998 for a three-year term, at a time when Zuma was Economic Affairs and Tourism MEC. This was renewed in 2001. Provincial Treasury officials said this week the latest tender for the province's accounts was won by Standard Bank.

A spokesman for the national Treasury explained that the government's accounts were held with the national revenue fund at the Reserve Bank. However, each government department had a " paymaster-general account" with a commercial bank for its day-to-day banking needs. The spokesman was unable to say how many departments used Absa for this purpose, but confirmed that the Treasury itself did.

Absa group media services head Errol Smith said that while the bank had been mentioned several times during the trial, the group could not comment as the matter was before the courts.

• Meanwhile, Anthony Lochner, a former regional manager for Bankfin, told the court Shaik had given him two cheques to pay arrears on a Toyota Camry belonging to Zuma's former wife, Foreign Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, as the car was about to be repossessed.

One of these cheques was honoured but the other bounced, Lochner said.

With acknowledgements to Paddy Harper and the Sunday Times.