Johannesburg - African National Congress deputy president Jacob Zuma has signed an undertaking, at the insistence of the State, that if he is found guilty he will pay back the money he is asking for his defence in his corruption trial.

Zuma has been refusing to sign an earlier undertaking prescribed by the office of the state attorney, which would have the state attorney become his instructing attorney, removing his trusted lawyer, Michael Hulley.

This week, however, the country's former deputy president agreed to an amended undertaking that allowed him to keep Hulley and his legal counsel while giving in to the State's demand that he pays back all expenses if he is found guilty.

This undertaking is set to go a long way in resolving the impasse about Zuma's request for the state to pay his legal costs as the charges he is facing relate to work he did while he was in the government.

State attorney Moipone Mosidi said earlier this month that Zuma's legal funds had been approved, but he had to furnish the state attorney with the names of his new counsel.

When Zuma first applied for the state to fund his legal defence he had enlisted advocates Seth Nthai and Hennie de Vos as his counsel, but later changed to have counsel who represented him in his rape trial earlier this year.

Correspondence between Hulley and Mosidi submitted as supporting documents in Zuma's affidavit filed in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week details several attempts by Zuma to get the state to fund his defence.

Zuma was responding to the national prosecuting authority's (NPA) affidavit, which was opposing his application to have his trial permanently stayed.

In his affidavit, Zuma says he has wasted money on substantial legal costs, and if the NPA's application to have the matter postponed to next February succeeds, further costs will have to be incurred.

He said, in his affidavit, that the State had adopted a "cynical attitude" towards his application and its responses to his requests for legal funds were "pure prevarication and obfuscation".

Earlier this month Hulley furnished Mosidi with names of the new counsel, as she had requested. "However, the state attorney is widely reported in the media as having publicly announced that our client's request for legal assistance has already been approved and that only the identity of counsel remains in issue. If this is so your letter under reply is all the more extraordinary," reads Hulley's letter.

According to Hulley's letter to Mosidi, Zuma's defence team will include five advocates: Kemp J Kemp SC, Jerome Brauns SC, Michael Smithers and Thandanani Mbongwa, and an additional counsel who will be required "from time to time".

Zuma also wants the State to pay all expenses incurred by witnesses and persons who are interviewed by any of his legal representatives.

With acknowledgements to Wonder Hlongwa and the City Press.