Former African National Congress chief whip Tony Yengeni, facing fraud and corruption charges that stem from his alleged involvement in the controversial arms deal, has given his defence team instructions to "seriously negotiate" with the State.

On Tuesday Advocate Viwe Notshe asked the Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in Pretoria to grant the defence one day as its "negotiations with the state will in the end shorten the proceedings".

He said the defence team was consulting Yengeni, but was not proceeding as quickly as it had hoped.

State advocate Jan Henning replied that on February 5, the prosecution received a proposal from the defence that it found unacceptable.

"On February 7 we received another proposal. The state indicated that it could accept it if certain changes were made to the proposal. On Friday afternoon the defence informed us that it had met all our requirements and that the state would receive a signed document by 4pm on Monday," Henning explained.

The time was then moved to 6pm and then to 10pm. But, by 7am on Tuesday the state had still not received the document.

Henning said the state had to make arrangements with witnesses who were on standby in the Western Cape.

"We have no guarantee that the defence will have that document ready by Wednesday and we have the MD of Mercedes-Benz who has to testify. Yengeni and his legal team have had more than enough time to negotiate with the state and to come forward with a decent proposal.

"Any proposal that will shorten the process will be welcomed, but the accused has not given his legal representatives instructions to continue with the trial," Henning said.

Notshe replied that the state's argument showed how serious the defence was about the negotiations.

"Yes, we don't have instructions to continue with the trial. Our instructions are to seriously negotiate with the state. We are willing to phone the state this afternoon to say whether we can continue or not," he said, adding that if all else failed, the defence would continue with the trial if instructions were given.

Magistrate Bill Moyses gave members of the defence team until 4pm on Tuesday to notify the state of the outcome of their consultations and whether they had met the State's requirements.

He also ordered that if the requirements were not met, the matter would proceed on Wednesday regardless of whether instructions were given to the defence team or not.

It is alleged that German businessman Michael Joseph Woerfel, of Aeronautics Defence and Space Company (EADS), gave Yengeni a 47 percent discount on a luxury 4x4 vehicle in an attempt to influence him to use his connections to favour EADS in the arms deal.

Woerfel apparently sold the car, initially priced at R349 950, to Yengeni for R182 563.

EADS has a 33 percent stake in Reutech Radar Systems, a Stellenbosch-based company that secured a R220 million contract to provide radars for the corvettes. The company is also a joint venture with DaimlerChrysler Aerospace and two European companies.

With acknowledgements to the Cape Argus and Independent Online.