Staff Reporter
Dinesh Patel, a representative of Nulane Investment 204 (Pty) Ltd, is expected to appear at the Bloemfontein Magistrate Court on Tuesday on charges of procurement fraud involving R25 million paid to the company by the Free State Department of Agriculture about 10 years ago.
Investigating Directorate (ID) spokesperson Sindisiwe Seboka said in a statement on Monday that Patel joins 16 other accused together including several companies that face charges of fraud and money laundering for a multi-million-rand feasibility study that was contracted to Nulane Investments by the provincial government.
The study was commissioned to see the possibility of implementing the Mohoma Mobung Agriculture Project, an umbrella programme under which all agricultural projects in the province were to be implemented.
“Nulane Investments, however, had no employees on its books and in fact subcontracted Deloitte Ltd to produce the report,” reads part of the ID statement.
“Deloitte was paid R1.5 million for the work. 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.”
Patel is charged along with Nulane Investments owner Iqbal Sharma, former Free State head of department for rural development Mbana Peter Thabethe, former head of department Limakatso Moorosi and former chief financial officer for the department Seipati Dhlamini.
They are charged together with four companies, Nulane Investments 204 (Pty) Ltd, Wone Management (Pty) Ltd, Pragat Investment (Pty) Ltd and Islandsite Investments (Pty) Ltd.
The other accused, who include two Gupta brothers and their wives, are currently out of the country and South African authorities are working with Interpol to find them and bring them to face trial.