Blow to state as some documentary evidence in Nulane trial ruled inadmissible

The state's case in the Nulane R24.9m fraud and money laundering case suffered a blow when acting judge Nompumelelo Gusha ruled most of the documentary evidence submitted by the state is inadmissible.

Gusha said the state had failed to authenticate copies of documents handed in as documentary evidence to the court.

The acting judge said the reasoning provided by the state and its witnesses is that the originals were either lost during the department's relocation of offices, or that they couldn't be found.

Gusha said this reasoning was not sufficient.

Documents that could not be admitted included the Deloitte report and the contract between Nulane and the department, among others.

The second accused, Limakatso Moorosi, broke into tears after Gusha's ruling.

“They wasted our time and money,” she said when Gusha adjourned the trial for a few minutes after delivering her ruling.

The documents Gusha admitted as evidence despite being copies included the deviation memo that saw accused Iqbal Sharma's company score a R12m payment. This was because the author of the document, Shadrack Cezula, had testified in court and authenticated them.

All the accused in the trial have pleaded not guilty.

This is the first high-profile state capture case and is related to an alleged corrupt tender in which 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 Nulane had no employees on its books and subcontracted Deloitte to produce the report, for which it was paid R1.5m.

The feasibility study tender was given to Iqbal Sharma's company, Nulane. It’s alleged that the only change made to the Deloitte report was to identify Paras dairy, a company in India, 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.

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