Central SA
Former Agri director spills beans at court trial─── LUCKY NKUYANE 15:00 Fri, 27 Jan 2023
The former Director at the Department of Agriculture in the Free State has laid bare how he assisted the police during a raid at the department's office in connection with the Estina adjacent case.
Former director Avela Madoda Stofile told the Free State High Court during the continuation of the trial into the fraud, corruption, and money laundering case that he aided the police to retrieve these files from the offices of the Head of Department (HOD) and Finance Department.
He says the documents, including copies of invoices amounting to millions paid to Nulane Investments during 2011, were retrieved during the raid by the police.
Stofile indicated, in his affidavit to the police, that he mentioned some of the invoices included copies of payments of R1.5 million, R12.4 million, and two batches of over R4 million, all paid to the company in question.
Former government officials, including the HOD Peter Mbana Thabethe, Seipati Dhlamini and Dimakatso Moorosi, including Gutpa Lieutenant Iqbal Sharma, face the aforementioned charges.
The trial will resume on Monday 30 January 2023. It is alleged that officials – including Thabethe, Dhlamini, and 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 case is based on allegations that the money 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 Ltd, 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 developing a milk processing plant in Vrede.
Suspects in the case include businessman and former transit board member Iqbal Sharma, former Free State HOD for Rural Development (FSDoRD) Peter Thabethe; former HOD Limakatso Moorosi; former Chief Financial Officer Seipati Dhlamini; Iqbal Sharma’s brother-in-law and a representative of Nulane Investments, Dinesh Patel; and Islandsite director Ronica Ragavan.
The companies indicted are Nulane Investments 204 Pty Ltd. and Islandsite Investment One Hundred and Eighty Pty Ltd.
The trial is expected to be concluded on 3 March 2023.
