This despite the fact that members of the public and the provincial legislature structure have waited for the two reports for several months now. The chairperson of the Free State Legislature’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Neels van Rooyen, said the investigations into the two controversial reports had yet been completed and, as such, the matters will form part of outstanding matters, which will be dealt with by the incoming legislature administration. This follows after a two-week long adoption of provincial budgets which were characterized by several members, from the legislature, questioning what happened to these reports and how far investigations into these matters are.

On Friday, OFM News had reported that the Vrede Dairy Farm project would be tabled, however, because the project remains incomplete, this was not the case. Instead, members of the House then tabled a Legacy Report. The house then adopted that all the outstanding matters, such as these two reports, must then be handed over to the new administration which will then deal with them accordingly. This , however, will only take place at the first sitting after the elections when a speaker, deputy speaker and a premier have been elected as well as permanent members to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) have been nominated.

The Estina Dairy Farm project in Vrede, Free State, has dominated headlines for several years. This after it was alleged that the provincial government used the project, which was meant to benefit dairy farmers in the Free State, to siphon millions of Rands towards a wedding celebration by the controversial Gupta family, which now finds itself at the centre of investigations into state capture. It is alleged that more than R220 million earmarked for this was looted from the province of which over R30 million was used to fund the Gupta Sun City Wedding. The old Ramkraal Prison site in Bloemfontein, on the other hand, had more than R120 million allocated towards it eight years ago. The provincial government gave the green light for it to be refurbished as it would then later be used by the provincial government to house the provincial legislature. To date, however, the structure remains dilapidated with millions unaccounted for. The heritage site has also drawn much controversy from opposition parties with these parties demanding answers from the ruling party on how the millions, that were allocated to this project, were spent.

OFM News