Cape Town - THE Investigating Directorate says a brother-in law of Gupta associate Iqbal Sharma would appear in court on charges of procurement fraud involving R25 million paid by the Free State Department of Agriculture to Nulane Investment 204.
Spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka said Dinesh Patel would join 16 other accused together with companies that face charges of fraud and money laundering in the multimillion-rand feasibility study that was contracted to Nulane Investment by the Free State government.
Patel would appear in the Bloemfontein Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Seboka said the study was to determine the likelihood of the success of the Mohoma Mobung agriculture project.
“Nulane Investments, however, had no employees on its books and, in fact, subcontracted Deloitte Ltd to produce the report. Deloitte was paid R1.5m for the work.”
Seboka also said the only change made to the Deloitte report was to identify Paras diary as a suitable implementing partner for the development of a milk processing plant in Vrede.
She said Patel was charged along with Nulane Investment owner Iqbal Sharma, former Free State heads of Department for Rural Development Peter Thabethe and Limakatso Moorosi as well as former chief financial officer Seipati Dlamini.
They are charged together with three companies, Nulane Investment 204 (Pty) Ltd (owned and controlled by Sharma), Wone Management (Pty Ltd, Pragat Investment (Pty) Ltd and Islandsite Investments (Pty) Ltd.
Seboka said the balance of the accused listed in the charge sheet were not currently in South Africa.
IOL