Vrede Dairy Project: State abandons bid to hold trial within a trial over #GuptaLeaks

The State closed its case despite an earlier indication by prosecutor Peter Serunye that it would call witnesses for a trial within a trial so that acting Judge Nompumelelo Gusha could give judgment on whether testimony on the #GuptaLeaks will be allowed.

The defence in the ongoing trial successfully objected against such testimony, arguing that there were questions about whether emails that form part of the #GuptaLeaks were lawfully obtained, as well as about the authenticity of documents.

Read more in Daily Maverick: “Vrede Dairy Project: Legal defence prevents testimony about #GuptaLeaks in Free State corruption trial”

Eight accused face charges including fraud, corruption and money laundering, in connection with allegations that the Free State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development paid the Gupta-linked company Nulane Investments (an accused) R24.9-million for a feasibility study. The company allegedly did not have the capacity to perform the study and subcontracted Deloitte to do it for R1.5-million.

The State has called several witnesses to testify about allegations that the department appointed Nulane Investments without following procurement procedure and instead wrote a deviation memorandum that cited Nulane Investments as a sole service provider.

Two of the accused, Peter Thabethe and Limakatso Moorosi, are former heads of the Free State agriculture department. The State alleged that they unlawfully and wilfully contravened the Public Finance Management Act, which resulted in wasteful expenditure.

The other accused include the former chief financial officer of the provincial department, Seipati Dhlamini; Ronica Ragavan; a second company, Islandsite Investments One Hundred And Eighty; Dinesh Patel and Iqbal Sharma (the director of Nulane Investments). The feasibility study led to the controversial Vrede Dairy Project — a flagship project of the Free State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development that cost the department R280-million.

All eight pleaded not guilty and some of their legal representatives have indicated to the court their plans to launch an application to have their clients discharged.

The trial is expected to resume on Thursday morning with a finding by Judge Gusha on some of the documents provisionally put on record by the State. In the main, these involve documents confiscated during a search and seizure operation at the offices of the Free State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Visit Daily Maverick’s home page for more news, analysis and investigations

The investigating officer in the case, Mandla Mtolo, took the stand on Friday and was questioned on how these documents were handled from the moment they were put in an evidence bag in Bloemfontein to their safekeeping at court.

Kenny Oldwadge, representing Patel, questioned Mtolo on the standing rules of the South African Police Service in terms of the handling of documents that can turn out to be in dispute.

Mtolo testified that although the documents were seized on 18 March 2020 in Bloemfontein, he only booked them into an evidence room two days later in Johannesburg.

Oldwadge said the chain of evidence was not preserved in terms of the standing rules and order of the police. He said there was also conflicting evidence on whether these documents originated from the financial or the supply chain units of the provincial department.

Some documents, such as the contract between Nulane and the provincial department, were printed from a computer, according to witnesses.

Prosecutor Serunye argued that the court could allow documents to be recorded into the record where the originals were lost or could not be found.

Dhlamini’s lawyer, Willem Edeling, said before the defence could make a decision on their next step, they wanted to have a finding on the documents provisionally put on record by the State. He said nothing had been done to convince the court to allow documents that were originally provisionally admitted, to become part of the court record.

He asked Mtolo whether some documents were transferred from the docket of the Estina matter. Mtolo said he made copies of the documents, but he did not certify them, which was an oversight.

The last witness for the State, Thomas Church, testified virtually from Nigeria on Wednesday morning. He said he and his team were responsible for site visits to a list of projects — including the Vrede Dairy Project’s feasibility study — by the provincial department. He was the contractor for Deloitte, which was responsible for writing the report.

Church testified that there were material differences between the original report that he submitted to his supervisor at Deloitte, Omri van Zyl, and the final report submitted to the department. He said a copy of the final report was given to him by Mtolo.

He said the following changes had been made:

• Fixed capital was changed from R250-million to R500-million;


• Turnover was changed from R40-million to R80-million;


• Net profit was changed from R8-million to R16-million; and


• The number of employees was changed from 400 to 600 people.