The long-stand­ing rela­tion­ship between Jacob Zuma and attor­ney Barn­a­bas Xulu seems to be on the rocks, as the law­yer’s firm heads to court to recover R12.5m in legal fees from Zuma’s MKP.

The Sunday Times reports that JG and Xulu Inc has told the Gauteng High Court (Johan­nes­burg) that the party failed to honour an agree­ment to pay R500 000 a month towards its out­stand­ing legal fees after mak­ing an ini­tial R1m pay­ment.

Accord­ing to court papers, the firm was appoin­ted in June 2024 to launch an applic­a­tion in the Elect­oral Court in Bloem­fon­tein to set aside the national and pro­vin­cial elec­tion res­ults due to alleged vote rig­ging and irreg­u­lar­it­ies.

It lists the money owed for this case as R6.9m, describ­ing it as com­plex and requir­ing scru­tiny of volu­min­ous elec­tion data and the involve­ment of three coun­sel and spe­cial­ists in digital tech­no­logy. 

The second major com­pon­ent of the firm’s claim relates to par­lia­ment­ary mat­ters.

JG and Xulu says the MKP appoin­ted it to defend its then deputy pres­id­ent John Hlophe against three applic­a­tions brought in the West­ern Cape High Court in July 2024 by the DA, Free­dom Under Law and Cor­rup­tion Watch.

These sought to inter­dict Hlophe from par­ti­cip­at­ing in the JSC because he had been impeached.

Full Sunday Times report