Senior counsel for Durban businessman Schabir Shaik, on trial for fraud and corruption, has suggested that the forensic auditor who compiled an epic report supporting the case against his client, left crucial information out of it.

This information includes, among other things, money that was repaid to Shaik by Deputy President Jacob Zuma.

Advocate Francois van Zyl SC said auditor Johan van der Walt had been selective in the use of documents to compile his reports.

Van der Walt said he had had 152 000 documents to sift through, and had used those he considered to be relevant.

Shaik has pleaded not guilty to two charges of corruption and a third of fraud.

One of the corruption charges against him is an allegation that Shaik had solicited a bribe of R1-million from French arms company Thint for Zuma.

The other relates to R1.2m in payments made to Zuma.

The State is alleging that the amount of payments to Zuma, and the lack of evidence of an attempt to repay the money, was suggestive of corruption.

But Van Zyl hinted that the State might not have looked hard enough to find the repayments.

Van der Walt said in his report that he could only find two payments from Zuma to Shaik, totalling R20 000.

Van Zyl then asked him about money paid out to one of Shaik's companies, after Zuma cashed in a life policy.

Van der Walt conceded that this could have been another payout to the company.

Then Van Zyl produced documents, including a bank account held at Absa in Zuma's name, showing that Shaik had been reimbursed for R21 000 in ANC levies he had paid on Zuma's behalf. Van Zyl also said the money had been transferred on Shaik's orders.

Van der Walt said he would have to investigate if the auditors had been aware of this specific account.

Yesterday's proceedings started with the State witness, John Dover from the UK, who met Shaik when he was based in South Africa with Symbol Technologie - a US company which invented the scanner that reads barcodes.

Dover was called to testify about the count of fraud against Shaik which involves the Prodiba project.

Prodiba, in which Shaik's Nkobi Holdings had a stake, is the group responsible for producing South Africa's credit-card-style driver's licences.

The State claims Shaik created a false non-distributable reserve against a Kobi IT (Nkobi subsidiary) loan account by using a non-existent work share agreement to increase the value of shares in his company. Dover told the court he had no knowledge of this work share agreement.

Shaik allegedly also falsely wrote off R1.2m as Prodiba Development costs.

However, Dover said an agreement between Symbol Technologies and Prodiba never materialised. The aim of negotiations was to get Symbol Technologies to provide the hand-held scanner which would enable officers to read licence cards on the roadside.

The trial continues.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Cape Argus.