#GuptaLeaks: Free State govt paid for Gupta Sun City wedding – report
Gupta-linked Linkway Trading was allegedly key in ensuring the diversion of cash earmarked for the Vrede dairy project to reimburse most of the wedding expenses.
Atul Gupta. Picture: Gallo Images
According to the latest revelations from the #GuptaLeaks, it is alleged the 2013 lavish wedding of the Gupta brothers’ niece at Sun City resort was largely paid for through laundered public funds from the Free State’s Vrede dairy project via Dubai.
AmaBhungane and Scorpio reported on Friday that the Guptas’ Linkway Trading (Pty) Ltd, audited by KPMG, was key in ensuring the diversion of cash earmarked for the Vrede dairy project to reimburse most of the four-day wedding expenses – R30 million, to be exact.
In 2013, amaBhungane previously revealed how the Free State government, under the auspices of then provincial MEC for agriculture Mosebenzi Zwane, gifted an unknown company, Estina, a free 99-year lease to a 4 400-hectare farm outside Vrede, which happens to be Zwane’s hometown.
The government also promised Estina R114 million a year for three years to set up a farming operation and dairy project to empower locals and boost provincial agriculture. The project was allegedly not put out to public tender.
The sole director of the company was Kamal Vasram, an IT salesman with no farming experience.
Read the full story here.
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