Previous Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Point out Stability Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of files that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s firm secretary at some time mentioned media reports she claimed had been depending on “stolen” info within an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It uncovered the knowledge was not a matter of point out safety and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” for the media to reveal it.
A fresh board and administration has due to the fact taken about the NLC and So far have taken actions to finish corruption in the institution.
A Condition Stability Company (SSA) investigation discovered that the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “presented sufficient motive” for publicity because of the media.
The probe into meant “information and facts stability breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was carried out immediately after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote into the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to analyze.
Here is
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC business secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the safety agency’s “private” findings and proposals.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to analyze the purpose of NLC workers within the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit identified precise media and reviews that she claimed included these leaks.
Within the letter outlining its results, the SSA explained to the NLC that whilst shielding point out info was “a authorized critical directed at protecting the sovereignty and integrity from the state” this only placed on correctly categorised information and facts.
Even though it did not say so directly, the SSA conclusions implied the allegedly leaked facts did not tumble into this group.
Drastically, the SSA built it crystal clear that the need to protect state data “won't reduce any individual from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminal activity”.
The SSA investigation observed the NLC data involved with the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, but not labeled concerning the prescripts in the Least Information and facts Security Standards (Overlook)”.
“The leakage from the related sensitive Formal NLC information and facts into the media won't pose a menace to national protection,” the SSA explained, including that the impact with the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report identified “no evidence of a factual and incriminating character towards any with the suspected NLC employees that could be determined from the knowledge and information interrogated”.
Additionally, it said that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does deliver ample motive to possess such exposed within the media”.
Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda explained to MPs through a session of Parliament’s trade, sector and Competitors portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” wherein info “stolen” with the NLC was sent to your US, exactly where he claimed it was currently being sold to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.
He was repeating related claims he experienced Earlier produced in Parliament, which provided advert hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was careful not to name possibly.
“I arrived in this article On this August home past yr and documented to honourable members that information about our beneficiaries continues to be stolen and put in a single state in America,” he instructed MPs.
“We named around the State Protection Company to come back explore the make any difference due to the fact we've been finding experiences that our facts is creating dollars for media platforms and journalists,” he claimed. “There has been discuss, not surprisingly from a person supply, a single media, that spoke Considerably about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda mentioned (referring to GroundUp), but failed to notify MPs which the SSA investigation had been accomplished almost a yr previously.
Proactive funding was at the guts from the looting with the lottery. It facet-stepped the normal grant course of action. The NLC could alone recognize a job to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to supervise it.
After Nevhutanda very first instructed Parliament in 2018 that he had asked the SSA to research the supposed breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Discussion board issued a statement indicating that his remarks reflected “a particularly perilous Frame of mind where the media is staying blamed for your NLC’s inherent challenges”.
“As opposed to investigating why tens of millions can not be accounted for, the NLC has as an alternative attempted to Solid doubt to the integrity of your journalists associated and it has requested the SSA to research their sources.”
Proactive jobs created solution
Protection flaws recognized inside the NLC grant funding program through the SSA’s investigation, appear to have been made use of as an justification with the NLC to remove all proactive-funded initiatives from its central grants method.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding projects was heightened to ‘solution’ and projects ended up faraway from the grant funding method and preserved manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information and facts Place of work, Government Manager Authorized so as to safeguard [the] information and facts,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
“There was a great deal of inner discussion, with many forwards and backwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was in the senior position at the NLC at enough time, instructed GroundUp. “In the end, the decision was taken to get rid of all of the proactive initiatives within the technique and limit use of A few people”.
Some in that handful of people were implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned within the NLC quite a few yrs back, has long been implicated in corruption involving lottery cash. He obtained R4.3-million from lottery money allocated to make a library and museum complicated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he employed to construct a home in an upmarket gated development in Pretoria. The house is one of quite a few paid out for with lottery cash which were frozen following the Asset Forfeiture Device received a preservation buy in December 2022.
The politically-linked Nevhutanda, who was appointed because the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to superior-ups within the ANC leadership, previous NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief running officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated within the corruption which overwhelmed the NLC on their own look at.
Also implicated are former board customers William Huma, who resigned just after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who's got because died.
Every time a new administration, including the overall board and executive, took over for the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found a “chaotic mess” while in the documentation concerning proactive funding, Significantly of which was paper-dependent. Vital files were missing. Data files held for safekeeping by doc storage business Metrofile had been signed out and never ever returned.
The NLC was in the position to Get better copies of some ตัว หวย paperwork from its Mimecast e-mail archiving technique as well as the laptops of their assistants and support team.
News reports
In his one December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has observed with grave concern probable facts security breaches plus the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private details received on account of doing Formal capabilities within the Commission by NLC staff members. The activities are intended to undermine the integrity with the Fee while disrupting the powerful features [on the NLC] and producing insurmountable reputational hurt to your Fee as being the custodian of private details entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His request for the SSA to investigate was supported within an affidavit by suspended NLC corporation secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at this time struggling with a disciplinary inquiry just after she was unsuccessful in authorized motion to put aside findings of irregular expenditure on her check out.
The objective of her affidavit, Nene stated, was “to report the activities which transpired concerning info safety breaches for the Countrywide Lotteries Fee”.
She mentioned numerous news studies which she claimed ended up the effects of such “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this article).
Nene stated that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that certainly one of its workers, Sello Qhino, experienced “furnished her categorized NLC Info and persistently inspired her to supply the data to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle on the number of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman after makes an attempt to lift the issue internally have been disregarded, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an eighteen November 2018 write-up from the Daily Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene reported which the NLC discovered and then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an employee in the NLC’s East London office, who was the partner and the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s three kids.
Rungqu and Makatse believe Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, Using the NLC expending R470,000 on attorneys to stand for it, but was identified not responsible and allowed to return to work.
“The widespread Think about these articles or blog posts is that [they include] labeled facts relating to proactive funding tasks,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out with the spouse and children home to go ahead and take warmth off her and his little ones. Experiencing homelessness, he moved into an Office environment in an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a buddy.
The two Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation course of action intended to recognise the hurt lots of people endured at the fingers of the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, monetary compensation are envisioned.
“Some people ended up truly impacted incredibly negatively by this … This is actually unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz advised the Day by day Maverick past year.
“I met a few these folks. It was just so heart-wrenching that their full life are turned the wrong way up,” mentioned Scholtz.
Amongst those she achieved have been Qhino and Makatse.
Protected System essential for whistleblowers
The SSA discovered the absence at some time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show towards the media.
“Failure to possess a focused anti-corruption channel will cause employees presenting these kinds of cases outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its results.
“Specified the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it remains essential that it makes sure that the NLC complies with all safety prescripts and that its target is on making certain that illegal and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated versus and by making sure an suitable channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out with no currently being intimidated.”
It advised that the NLC create a “Protected channel” for workers to supply info on any “untoward action” that would not protect against or discourage staff from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, depending on the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, can be a need.”
Media reports Nene shown
A ten December 2017 report during the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellness and Exercise Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor on the Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The report had components of information not available in the general public domain, thereby boosting worry on inner Info stability breaches. The allegations while in the media had been independently investigated,” Nene said. “On the other hand, personnel accountable for divulging labeled info have still for being identified”;
A 28 January 2018 report released via the Dally Dispatch “citing various allegations within the Limpopo Mirror article posted on 10 December 2017 and a new allegation associated with a previous personnel through the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed with the danger triggered into the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 posting during the Lowvelder in regards to the misappropriation of NLC money involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, in spite of getting R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has never been completed. “The Lowvelder article contained categorised information with regards to NLC coverage, boosting even more issues of inner information security breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, on the other hand [it] highlighted the heightened info safety challenges in the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Major Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene stated GroundUp had confirmed in its Tale that it absolutely was based on leaked NLC files. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Access to Information and facts) ask for for information with regards to the venture, she mentioned