The trial which commenced yesterday, was postponed to today after the accused applied to the court to have their matter struck off the roll due to undue delays.
Their lawyers requested the court to postpone the trial to allow them time to submit replying affidavits to the court as the prosecution has responded to their application. The long-standing case emanates from the alleged looting of the Free State Department of Agriculture and Rural Development between July 2012 and April 2014.
The 15 accused include eight companies and seven persons who are former and current officials of the department, then Free State Agriculture MEC Mosebenzi Zwane and Gupta associates. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.