Johannesburg – ANC deputy secretary-general Jesse Duarte’s ex-husband John Duarte was one of the people who appeared in the evidence money flows from Gupta contracts.
Paul Edward Holden, a researcher employed by Shadow World Investigations, corrected Duarte’s relationship before giving evidence at the state capture commission.
The commission said it would not name 30 of the more than 200 parties that were implicated until they has seen the allegations and responded and the identities of third parties who were not related to any wrongdoing would be sealed.
However, the first correction had already attracted interest. The correction at hand was that John Duarte was actually Jesse Duarte’s ex-husband.
Holden said that the Gupta enterprise was awarded contracts in excess of R49 billion that could be termed as irregular or state capture.
Among those contracts was the Transnet locomotives contract.
He said that funds that were acquired through criminal activity were used to purchase significant assets, like Optimum Coal Mine, and to legitimize other operations like Sahara Computers.
“… amounts paid by the state in contracts that were tainted by state capture according to your investigations,” evidence leader Advocate Matthew Chaskalson put to Holden.
Holden replied: “The number is R49,157,323,233.68”.
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