The Bloemfontein High Court has dismissed the charges against five of the accused in the R24.9 million Nulane Investment fraud trial.
This after the accused in the matter applied for discharge applications in terms of Section 174 of the Criminal Procedure Act.
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The accused in the matter, which include three former Free State government officials and associates of the Gupta brothers, wanted the charges against them to be dropped after the high court in February ruled that most of the state’s documentary evidence was inadmissible in court.
State capture trial
The Nulane Investment case is the first state capture case from the National Prosecuting Authority’s Investigative Directorate (ID) to be taken to trial.
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It is also the same case in which the South African government failed in February to extradite alleged state capture kingpins, Atul and Rajesh Gupta, from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to face charges of fraud and money laundering.
During Friday’s court proceeding, acting judge Nompumelelo Gusha ruled that the charges against the accused were dismissed.
Judge Gusha said the state failed to prove any common purpose in relation to the alleged Nulane fraud.
Nulane R24.9 million corruption trial
The case is based on allegations that R24.9 million was paid to Nulane Investment – a company owned by former Gupta associate Iqbal Sharma – to conduct a feasibility study for the Free State province’s flagship Mohoma Mobung project, which paved the way for the controversial Estina/Vrede dairy project.
Nulane was contracted by the provincial government on the basis that it had unique skills to perform the work.
The state alleged that Nulane, however, had no employees on its books and in fact subcontracted Deloitte to produce the report, for which Deloitte was paid R1.5 million.
It’s alleged that the only change made to the Deloitte report was to identify Paras Diary as a suitable implementing partner for the development of a milk processing plant in Vrede.
The five accused in the trial who applied for discharge are Sharma, former head of the Free State Department of Rural Development Peter Thabethe, former provincial agriculture chief financial officer (CFO) Seipati Dhlamini, Sharma’s brother-in-law and a representative of Nulane, Dinesh Patel, and Gupta-owned Islandsite Investments director, Ronica Ragavan.
The companies indicted are Nulane Investments and Islandsite Investment.
One of the accused, former head of the Free State Department of Agriculture Limakatso Moorosi, did not apply for discharge application.
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