Cape Town – African National Congress (ANC) national executive committee member Tony Yengeni was on Friday convicted in the Cape Town Magistrate’s Court on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol.
He was found not guilty on a charge of reckless driving.
Yengeni was sentenced on Friday to a R30 000 fine or 90 days in jail, half of which has been suspended for 5 years.
Yengeni was arrested on August 11, 2013, in Green Point, Cape Town, driving erratically in his white luxury Maserati, according to one of the arresting officers.
In June last year, Yengeni denied that he was drunk, saying: “If I was five times over the legal limit, I would have caused a serious accident. I don’t agree with the State’s case that I was drunk.”
He blamed the Democratic Alliance, who governs the Western Cape and the City of Cape Town, of engineering the case against him as part of a political conspiracy.
In 2007, Yengeni was also arrested for alleged drunk driving, but was later acquitted.
In that case, he was acquitted, and the Goodwood police station commander was fired and convicted of defeating the administration of justice for tampering with Yengeni’s blood sample.