Previous National Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the Condition Stability Company (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of documents that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s company secretary at the time outlined media studies she explained ended up according to “stolen” info within an affidavit for that SSA.
The SSA did examine. It identified the information wasn't a issue of state protection and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” to the media to reveal it.
A new board and administration has given that taken about the NLC and To this point have taken steps to end corruption with the establishment.
A Condition Stability Agency (SSA) investigation discovered the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “presented ample motive” for exposure because of the media.
The probe into supposed “facts security breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was undertaken just after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote towards the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to investigate.
Here is
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC corporation secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the security agency’s “private” conclusions and proposals.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to investigate the role of NLC staff in the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit identified unique media and stories that she claimed involved these leaks.
During the letter outlining its results, the SSA told the NLC that while preserving state info was “a lawful essential targeted at shielding the sovereignty and integrity of your point out” this only placed on properly labeled data.
Although it did not say so right, the SSA results implied the allegedly leaked details did not fall into this classification.
Significantly, the SSA created it apparent that the necessity to secure state information “isn't going to stop any unique from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.
The SSA investigation identified that the NLC data associated with the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, although not labeled in terms of the prescripts of your Bare minimum Data Safety Criteria (Miss out on)”.
“The leakage on the relevant delicate Formal NLC information and facts towards the media does not pose a menace to countrywide security,” the SSA claimed, adding which the effects in the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report found “no evidence of the factual and incriminating nature in opposition to any with the suspected NLC employees which could be discovered from the knowledge and info interrogated”.
Additionally, it stated that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does supply ample motive to have this sort of uncovered inside the media”.
Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda explained to MPs in the course of a session of Parliament’s trade, marketplace and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” by which info “stolen” from the NLC was despatched on the US, the place he claimed it was remaining marketed to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.
He was repeating equivalent promises he had Beforehand created in Parliament, which included advertisement hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was mindful not to call possibly.
“I came listed here During this August residence very last calendar year and noted to honourable associates that information regarding our beneficiaries has long been stolen and set in a single point out in the united states,” he instructed MPs.
“We termed over the Point out Protection Agency to return take a look at the matter simply because we have been having reports that our information and facts is making income for media platforms and journalists,” he mentioned. “There has been talk, certainly from just one supply, one media, that spoke A great deal about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda explained (referring to GroundUp), but failed to explain to MPs which the SSA investigation had been concluded Nearly a 12 months before.
Proactive funding was at the heart on the looting of your lottery. It side-stepped the conventional grant course of action. The NLC could alone identify a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to supervise it.
Immediately after Nevhutanda to start with told Parliament in 2018 that he experienced questioned the SSA to research the intended breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a press release expressing that his remarks reflected “a particularly dangerous attitude where by the media is currently being blamed for your NLC’s inherent problems”.
“Rather then investigating why thousands and thousands can not be accounted for, the NLC has alternatively made an effort to cast doubt over the integrity in the journalists included and it has asked the SSA to investigate their sources.”
Proactive initiatives made key
Safety flaws determined from the NLC grant funding system throughout the SSA’s investigation, seem to are already utilised as an excuse from the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded jobs from its central grants procedure.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding tasks was heightened to ‘secret’ and jobs ended up removed from the grant funding method and preserved manually under the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Data Place of work, Govt Manager Authorized so that you can safeguard [the] facts,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
“There was loads of inside discussion, with numerous back and forth, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a resource, who was inside of a senior position on the NLC at time, advised GroundUp. “In the end, the choice was taken to remove all of the proactive projects within the technique and Restrict usage of a handful of people”.
Some in that handful of folks had been implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned through the NLC various a long time back, is implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He acquired R4.three-million from lottery cash allocated to build a library and museum intricate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he applied to make a home in an upmarket gated improvement in Pretoria. The home is among several compensated for with lottery cash that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Unit acquired a preservation purchase in December 2022.
The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed since the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to high-ups in the ANC Management, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main running officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated within the corruption which confused the NLC on their look at.
Also implicated are previous board users William Huma, who resigned right after he was confronted with proof of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who may have given that died.
Every time a new administration, such as the overall board and govt, took around in the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found a “chaotic mess” within the documentation referring to proactive funding, A lot of which was paper-based mostly. Vital files had been lacking. Information held for safekeeping by doc storage organization Metrofile were signed out and never ever returned.
The NLC was capable of Get better copies of some หวย documents from its Mimecast email archiving process along with the laptops of their assistants and guidance workers.
Information reviews
In his one December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has famous with grave issue achievable information and facts security breaches plus the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information acquired because of undertaking Formal capabilities during the Fee by NLC workforce. The activities are meant to undermine the integrity of the Fee though disrupting the helpful capabilities [on the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational harm to the Fee since the custodian of personal details entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His request to the SSA to research was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC corporation secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is now struggling with a disciplinary inquiry after she was unsuccessful in lawful motion to set aside findings of irregular expenditure on her check out.
The goal of her affidavit, Nene claimed, was “to file the activities which transpired relating to information and facts protection breaches in the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.
She mentioned a variety of information studies which she claimed were being the outcome of such “breaches” (see at the end of this information).
Nene mentioned that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that amongst its workers, Sello Qhino, had “presented her labeled NLC Information and facts and persistently inspired her to deliver the data to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle with a number of dodgy lottery-funded jobs in Kuruman just after tries to boost The problem internally had been ignored, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an eighteen November 2018 report while in the Everyday Dispatch regarding the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene claimed that the NLC discovered then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an staff inside the NLC’s East London Workplace, who was the associate and also the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s 3 kids.
Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished simply because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, Along with the NLC investing R470,000 on lawyers to symbolize it, but was observed not responsible and allowed to return to work.
“The frequent Consider these articles or blog posts is the fact [they require] labeled details associated with proactive funding tasks,” Nene said in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your spouse and children household to take the warmth off her and his kids. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an Office environment within an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a friend.
Both equally Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation approach meant to recognise the harm a number of people endured within the hands from the NLC. Apologies and, in some instances, money payment are predicted.
“Some people today were being really afflicted pretty negatively by this … This is really distressing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day-to-day Maverick previous year.
“I achieved several these men and women. It was just so coronary heart-wrenching that their whole life happen to be turned the other way up,” mentioned Scholtz.
Among the People she achieved had been Qhino and Makatse.
Harmless platform necessary for whistleblowers
The SSA uncovered the absence at the time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn to your media.
“Failure to possess a dedicated anti-corruption channel will lead to staff presenting these conditions beyond the NLC,” the SSA reported in its conclusions.
“Supplied the magnitude of corruption in condition institutions, it remains very important that it makes certain that the NLC complies with all protection prescripts and that its focus is on making sure that illegal and irregular perform is adequately mitigated against and by making sure an satisfactory channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward perform devoid of getting intimidated.”
It proposed that the NLC create a “safe channel” for employees to offer info on any “untoward activity” that will not protect against or discourage employees from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, determined by the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is a requirement.”
Media reports Nene outlined
A 10 December 2017 report in the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellness and Physical fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked intently with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor from the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The short article had elements of knowledge not obtainable in the public domain, therefore elevating concern on internal Info security breaches. The allegations in the media were independently investigated,” Nene reported. “Even so, employees liable for divulging classified information and facts have but to be recognized”;
A 28 January 2018 posting revealed via the Dally Dispatch “citing several allegations within the Limpopo Mirror posting revealed on 10 December 2017 as well as a new allegation associated with a former staff via the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for the threat induced to the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 posting in the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC cash involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, Regardless of acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been completed. “The Lowvelder report contained categorised info regarding NLC plan, raising further concerns of interior information and facts security breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof regarding these allegations didn't warrant an impartial Investigation, even so [it] highlighted the heightened information and facts stability risks within the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Major Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp experienced verified in its story that it was depending on leaked NLC documents. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Use of Info) ask for for details with regard to the task, she mentioned