Free State government official Shadrack Cezula is adamant his conduct in enabling a lightning-fast R12.4 million payment to Gupta-linked Nulane is potentially criminal – but lawyers for the defence have spent two days trying to convince him otherwise.
A lawyer representing a former CFO of a Free State department has accused a witness of lying for stating that her client had dictated a deviation memo that was used to pay Nulane Investments R12m.
The Free State agriculture department had no tax certificate, company profile or banking details for Gupta-linked Nulane Investments – but it took less than five hours for it to sign off on the company getting a R12 million government payout.