New National Party leader and Western Cape premier Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been under renewed pressure at the disciplinary hearings of former deputy minister David Malatsi and former Western Cape premier Peter Marais to disclose when he first heard about a controversial R300 000 donation to the party.
Van Schalkwyk, who has said he first learnt in December of the donation by Count Riccardo Agusta, frontman for the developers of the Roodefontein golf estate in Plettenberg Bay, has been cross-examined by lawyers representing Malatsi and Marais at the hearings.
Both Malatsi and Marais have alleged that Van Schalkwyk knew about the donation from Agusta.
Meanwhile, Martha Olckers, deputy provincial chairman of the NNP, was asked on Tuesday if she was present at a meeting of NNP members on January 21, the same day Van Schalkwyk called a press conference at which he implicated Marais and Malatsi in the fundraising scandal.
Olckers said she was present and that Marais had said at the meeting that Van Schalkwyk knew about the donation. "Mr van Schalkwyk didn't say anything. He just nodded his head."