Two ABSA bank employees closely involved with the Jacob Zuma Education Trust Fund told the Durban High Court on Friday that they had never heard of or discussed the French arms company Thomson-CSF.

The men were testifying in the Schabir Shaik fraud and corruption trial.

Gert Pretorius who was head of the ABSA Trust said that fund raising was a "top priority".

He said that the trust, which paid bursaries to secondary and tertiary institutions on behalf of students, had applied for funding from the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund but was told it did not qualify. He said Deputy President Jacob Zuma who was a patron and trustee of the trust, said on three occasions said he would speak to Mandela personally in an attempt to get funding.

Mandela eventually endorsed a cheque of R2 million for Zuma.

Pretorius, who was the secretary of the trust, said R1 million went towards the trust and the other million was for Zuma *1.

He said Zuma had also undertaken to contact South Africa's ambassador to Egypt at that time, Mr Mdlalose, to help with overseas funding. He said that Zuma felt that they should look for black businessmen willing to attend fund raising functions.

Under cross examination Pretorius said Zuma had spoken about getting overseas funding for the trust but no mention was ever made of Thomson-CSF.

Defence advocate Francois van Zyl asked him if he would have noted the amounts of donations and names of donors if they came up informally before or after the meeting.

Pretorius said he would not have included that in his minutes.

Theunis Bennemeer, a senior trust officer at ABSA said he was given the trust fund's file to administer and he would know of all money paid to and from the trust.

He too had not heard of Thomson-CSF.

The evidence of the two ABSA employees relates to count three of corruption against Shaik. The State alleges that money given to Shaik by Thomson under a R500 000 "service provider agreement" was actually bribe money for Zuma. It alleges that Shaik solicited R500 000 per annum for Zuma from Thomson-CSF in exchange for protection against inquiry into arms deal irregularities. The service provider agreement was allegedly a scheme to disguise payments.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.

*1 Another riddle - just why would this be?