The Mail and Guardian’s amaBhungane team has obtained a nine-page wedding invitation posted on the investigating team’s website which reveals that the family will be holding the double wedding celebrations of Rajesh “Tony” Gupta’s daughter, Shubhangi Singhala, and Atul Gupta’s son, Srikant Singhala, at the five star Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhabi. According to amaBhungane, this is the third extravagant wedding to be held by the family. The most notable of the three weddings took place in 2013 in Sun City. The wedding initially caused a stir when a plane filled with the family’s guests landed at the Waterkloof Air Force Base. It is, however, the financing of that wedding that would later raise the most eyebrows.

The #GuptaLeaks investigation revealed that the R30 million that funded the controversial Sun City wedding was siphoned from the Estina Dairy Farm project in the Free State town of Vrede. The project was meant to benefit disadvantaged individuals in the area. The Department is said to have paid over R200 million into the Estina Nedbank account. The beneficiaries never saw a cent of the money. It is believed that more information will come to light regarding the Free State project, as more officials testify at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture, chaired by Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.

This while the criminal case into the project has fallen flat. In early December 2018, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) dropped charges against all the accused in the Vrede Dairy criminal case after the authority’s Asset Forfeiture Unit suffered several blows in the Free State High Court that year. The NPA provincial spokesperson, Phaladi Shuping, said they failed to obtain crucial information from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and India on the case. The accused: former Free State Agriculture head, Peter Thabethe, General Manager for District Services at the Free State Agriculture Department, Takisi Masiteng, former Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the Free State Agriculture Department Sylvia Dlamini, Gupta affiliates and associates, Ronica Raghavan, Nazeem Howa, Ashu Chawla, and Varun Gupta were arrested, appeared in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court and released out on bail in February 2018. Six months later, the accused returned to the courthouse where they maintained their innocence in the matter. The NPA was given a lifeline by Magistrate Collin Nenkosi, who postponed the matter to December 4, to allow the state to conclude its investigations. The charges were dropped on this day.

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