Lawyer for Nulane accused insists R24.9m taxpayer-funded payment for R1.5m report 'is not fraud'

Gupta-linked Nulane Investments may have received an "excessive" R24.9 million payment for a discounted report it paid Deloitte R1.5 million to complete, but this was "not fraud", a lawyer for one of the accused has argued.

Advocate Kenny Oldwadge, who represents Nulane representative Dinesh Patel, was responding to the evidence given by former Deloitte official, Omri van Zyl, who testified he was "surprised" that the Gupta-linked company had been paid nearly R25 million for the feasibility study it had paid his company a discounted rate to produce.

Deloitte was paid R1.5 million for that study, whose findings were then changed to push for a Free State government partnership with the Gupta-linked Paras Dairy.