Another night in jail for alleged Gupta associate
ALLEGED Gupta associate and former Transnet board member Iqbal Sharma was forced to spend an extra night in custody, after his bail application was postponed at the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court to today.
One of his co-accused, former Free State agriculture and rural development head Peter Thabethe, was granted R10 000 bail yesterday.
Sharma, Thabethe and their 15 co-accused face criminal charges related to defrauding the Free State Department of Agriculture (FSDoA).
The fraud is in connection with a R25 million feasibility study in 2011 that was allegedly irregularly granted to Nulane Investment 204 (Pty) Ltd – a company owned and controlled by Sharma. The company had to provide a report to the department within seven months.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) – which claimed it had a strong case against the accused – Nulane subcontracted the work to Deloitte Consulting for R1.5m.
It then subcontracted the work, already completed by Deloitte, to Gateway Limited and paid them more than R19m.
According to the NPA, from there, the funds were diverted to Islandsite Investments 180 (Pty) Ltd, a company owned and controlled by the Gupta family.
While Thabethe’s bail was granted, state advocate Peter Serunye told Magistrate Estelle de Lange that they were working on responding to Sharma’s lengthy affidavit. Serunye said Sharma’s affidavit was “voluminous” and asked for proceedings to be adjourned to allow the state enough time to address his affidavit in detail.
The matter was postponed, despite Sharma’s legal representative, Stephanus Coetzee, calling for the court to hear the application in full yesterday.
Coetzee told the court the state had been investigating the case for a “very long time” and there was already a full investigation in relation to Sharma’s finances.
Earlier, Magistrate De Lange granted Thabethe bail, on condition that he was present at court for all his cases and surrendered his passport to the authorities.
State prosecutor Jacyntha Witbooi told the court that the state opposed bail. She said the investigation was complete and there were witnesses ready to testify against Thabethe, including department officials.
Witbooi argued that releasing Thabethe on bail would undermine the justice system and disregard the people of the Free State, who were most affected by the looting.
The state has presented a case that Sharma, Thabethe, former head of FSDoA Limakatso Moorosi, and former FSDoA chief financial officer Seipati Dhlamini colluded to divert funds earmarked for rural development in the Free State. These funds were then placed at the disposal of the Gupta family.
Moorosi and Dhlamini were granted R10 000 bail each last Thursday, following their arrests on Wednesday.
The accused face charges of fraud and money laundering. The former government officials are also charged with contravention of the Public Finance Management Act.
The fifth suspect in the matter, Iqbal Sharma’s brother-in-law and a representative of Nulane Investments, Dinesh Patel, is expected to formally appear in court on June 15, owing to health reasons, while Thabethe’s case was postponed to July 5.