Eight suspects, including government officials, the so-called “Gupta Lieutenant” Iqbal Sharma, his company Nulane Investments, and others stood accused of fraud to the value of R25 million.

On Friday 21 April 2023, Judge Nompumelelo Gusha delivered her much-anticipated judgment, acquitting all the accused of the charges against them. 

Delivering the judgment of over an hour, Judge Gusha said the police's investigation into fraud, corruption, and money laundering was a comedy of errors of the millennium, as they failed to handle evidence.

Judge Gusha delivered a scathing judgment on the investigations and the prosecution led by state prosecutor Adv. Peter Serunye and Adv. Jacyntha Witbooi.

In the 39-page judgment, Judge Gusha explained the state failed to pass even the most basic threshold and that the application for a discharge could not be refused.

She also dealt with state key witnesses who gave testimony in court. Judge Gusha lamented the testimony of Shadrack Cezula in particular, who gave his testimony as a section-204 witness in court. She declined to give him an indemnity as Cezula failed to incriminate himself in the alleged wrongdoing in the Estina adjacent case, as required by law when a section 204 witness testifies in court.

She said Kenosi Thubisi was an honest witness but was overwhelmed by the situation he found himself in. His testimony did not take the state's case any further.  

This was the second blow to the state after the judge earlier in February dismissed some of the evidence led by prosecutors Adv. Peter Serunye and Adv. Jacyntha Witbooi.

Judge Gusha ruled that some of the documents produced in court as evidence failed to pass the tests of originality and authenticity.  

ALSO READ: Evidence against Gupta associates ruled as inadmissible

She made reference to the documents from the so-called Gupta lieutenant Iqbal Sharma's Nulane Investments company, including the R8 million tax invoice, a contract between the Agriculture Department and Nulane, and also Delloite's due diligence report.

Judge Gusha ruled the Nulane tax invoice and the department's deviation document, crafted by Shadrack Cezule, were admissible but the contract between the department and Nulane, and a due diligence report were ruled inadmissible. Judge Gusha said all the evidence the state came to rely upon to prove the authenticity, came to nothing.

It was also heard during the proceedings that millions of rands allegedly looted from the Free State Agriculture Department could not be fully traced because they were pushed around to different bank accounts by suspects accused of varying crimes in the R25 million Estina adjacent trial.

This emerged during the testimony of a state witness, Thesele Rankuoatsana, who is the National Prosecuting Authority's (NPA) senior financial investigating officer and former Hawks commercial crime investigator.

According to Rankuoatsana, money from one of the accused, Island Investments, and an accused in the Estina adjacent trial, was mixed in with other money discovered in the company's account.

In his testimony, he said “when the funds reached the Islandsite bank account, the funds got intermingled with other funds, making it impossible to identify the further flow or even the destination”.

OFM News previously reported that the prosecution team called a retired Absa employee, Linda Channing, with more than 40 years of experience, as well as Norman Percival Smit, also with more than 40 years of experience at the bank.

Channing took to the stand and explained how the banking management system works and how one of the Gupta brothers, Atul, was the super user of the banking system for Sahara Computers.

Later on, Smit also testified about how money allegedly flowed from one account to another during 2011 and 2012. Millions of rands were transferred from Sharma to Islandsite Investments.

The case is based on allegations that R24.9 million was paid to Nulane Investments to conduct a feasibility study for the Free State Province’s flagship Mohoma Mobung project, on the basis that Nulane had unique skills to perform the work.

The state alleged that Nulane Investments, 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 Dairy as a suitable implementing partner for the development of a milk processing plant in Vrede.

Free State government officials and service providers stand accused of looting and stealing millions from the Free State Agriculture Department. It's alleged that officials – including Peter Mbana Thabethe, Seipati Dhlamini, and Limakatso Moorosi – allowed an illegal upfront payment of R12 million with no proper documents.

It's also alleged that the department later paid the rest of the money, amounting to R24.9 million, for a feasibility study.

The companies indicted are Nulane Investments 204 Pty Ltd. and Islandsite Investment One Hundred and Eighty Pty Ltd.

In 2021, during the bail hearing of some of the suspects at the Bloemfontein Magistrate's Court, Advocate Witbooi revealed that the Free State was one of the provinces often looted by the notorious Gupta family members and associates.

It's unclear how the proceedings or the outcomes of this adjacent trial could influence the proceedings in the original 2018 Estina case, where some of the suspects, including Ronica Ragavan, Peter Mbana Thabethe, and Seipati Dhlamini, stand accused of varying charges in that case.

OFM News