In April 2022, Free State High Court Judge Nompumelelo Gusha discharged seven accused including former government officials, and service providers, and acquitted one suspect of all charges levelled against them in the first Zondo Commission's state capture case. 

ALSO READ: First State capture fraud case fails in Court; suspects acquitted – VIDEO

The NPA's Investigating Directorate(ID) spokesperson, Sindisiwe Seboka, says the prosecution team will be appealing Gusha's judgment.

Seboka says this after carefully interrogating all aspects of the judgment.

Gusha delivered a scathing judgment against the NPA's prosecution team led by Advocate Peter Serunye and Advocate Jacyntha Witbooi and the Hawks' investigation team. Gusha labelled the police investigations a comedy of errors of the millennium.

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

Gusha said the State failed to pass the barest of thresholds because there was no evidence to indicate that the accused, including Sharma, and his company, Nulane Investments, among others, had jointly misrepresented the Bank of Baroda, Treasury and the South African Reserve Bank.

ALSO READ: Evidence against Gupta associates ruled as inadmissible

During her judgment, Gusha used an African proverb to describe the police's investigation and prosecution of suspects in the matter. “Haste and hurry can only bear children with many regrets along the way.”

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.

ALSO READ: Witness says looted Estina millions 'difficult to trace'

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

Rankuoatsana said money from one of the accused, Islandsite 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 and Norman Percival Smit both with more than 40 years of experience at the bank.

ALSO READ: Estina adjacent trial: State ropes in banking officials

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 was 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 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 were accused of looting and stealing millions from the Free State Agriculture Department. It was 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 was also alleged that the department later paid the rest of the money, amounting to R24.9 million, for a feasibility study.

The companies that were indicted were 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.

ALSO READ: Free State 'often looted by Guptas'

The state is, however, planning to hold a press briefing next week after the application for leave to appeal has been lodged.

"Notwithstanding serious concerns with the judgment, which will be outlined in the papers and dealt with in the legal process, this case demonstrates the urgency to finalise the process to make the ID a permanent entity, with requisite criminal investigative powers and expanded partnerships, as detailed in the president’s response to the Zondo commission reports. The Nulane Investments case is one of 34 cases that have been enrolled by the ID, involving 203 accused persons and 65 entities from 2019 to March 2023," Seboka added.

OFM News