All six accused in the Nulane R24.9m fraud and money laundering trial have pleaded not guilty, after being formally charged at the start of the trial in the Free State High Court in Bloemfontein on Monday.

The first high-profile state capture case to go on trial is set down for six weeks.

The case is based on an alleged corrupt tender in which the money was paid to Nulane Investments to conduct a feasibility study for the Free State’s Mohoma Mobung project, on the basis that Nulane had unique skills to perform the work.

The state alleges that Nulane Investments, however, had no employees on its books and in fact subcontracted Deloitte to produce the report, for which it was paid R1.5m.

Gupta associate Iqbal Sharma was the last of the six accused to arrive in court at about 10am, just ahead of the start of the trial.

The feasibility study tender was given to Sharma's company, Nulane Investments. 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.

Others in the dock are:

• Peter Thabethe, former head of the Free State department of rural development;
• Limakatso Moorosi, former head of Free State department of agriculture;
• Seipati Dhlamini, former provincial agriculture CFO;
• Dinesh Patel, Sharma’s brother-in-law and a representative of Nulane Investments; and
• Islandsite director Ronica Ragavan.

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

The state kicked off proceedings with prosecutor Jacyntha Witbooi reading the charges proffered against the accused into record. The accused face four counts of fraud, money laundering and contravening the Public Finance Management Act.

The first witness was an official from the National Treasury's forensic audit unit, Siphiwe Mahlangu.

Mahlangu was asked in February 2021 by the investigating officer to assess documents pertaining to the Nulane feasibility study contract and a memo that supported the deviation from the normal procurement processes.

Barely 15 minutes into Mahlangu's testimony, as his evidence was led by prosecutor Peter Serunye, several objections were raised by defence lawyers. They raised objections on the admission of documents at the centre of the evidence presented by Mahlangu. The lawyers said they had not been presented with originals.

Dan Mantsha, representing Thabethe, called into question the admissibility of the documents Mahlangu assessed, saying he was not the person who drafted those documents in the first place.

Ishmael Semenya, representing Moorosi, said while challenging the admissibility of the documents as evidence: “The police officer who gave the witness the documents can authenticate the documents and the witness cannot authenticate the documents.”

Acting judge Nompumelelo Gusha ruled in favour of the documents being provisionally admitted as evidence. She said she would provide reasons later.

Mahlangu, the first witness, is being led by Serunye on his assessment of the documents, including the contract found.

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