The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) will continue with its meeting on African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma’s fate today after a marathon session yesterday.

It is understood the meeting heard input from investigators, and discussions were extensive.

Last night, NPA spokesman Tlali Tlali said: “The meeting has not ended, and no decision has been taken yet.

“Deliberations have not been exhausted.”

NPA acting head Mokotedi Mpshe spent about 12 hours behind closed doors with his senior managers and prosecutors poring over Zuma’s representations to have the 16 fraud, corruption and racketeering charges against him dropped.

Although the NPA maintained last night that no decision had been made on the matter, sources close to the process said it was a fait accompli in Zuma’s favour *1.

It is understood that the NPA will hold a press conference today to announce and explain its decision to drop the charges against Zuma.

The authority has the difficult task of explaining why it now no longer has a case against Zuma.

In another indication that the state is likely to end its eight-year-old probe of Zuma, his legal team missed a deadline last week to file papers in the Constitutional Court to have his prosecution declared invalid.

Yesterday, the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence (OIGI) dismissed calls for an investigation of tapes allegedly fingering former president Thabo Mbeki for meddling in Zuma’s prosecution, evidently provided by Zuma’s legal team in its representations.

“Allegations of the interception and monitoring of the communications of senior officials apparently discussing the Zuma case have not been confirmed, and no evidence of these allegations have been made available to the office of the inspector-general,” OIGI chief director Imtiaz Fazel said.

The Democratic Alliance had urged the OIGI to investigate media reports suggesting Zuma supplied the NPA with the tapes, allegedly obtained illegally.

It is understood that Zuma’s representations included an argument that his charges were part of a political conspiracy; that his relationship with his former financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, was not corrupt; and that it would not be in the interests of the country to continue his prosecution.

With acknowledgements to Karima Brown, Hajra Omarjee, Amy Musgrave and Business Day.