Previous Nationwide Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Point out Safety Company (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of files that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s organization secretary at the time stated media reviews she explained were dependant on “stolen” details in an affidavit for your SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It discovered the information was not a make a difference of condition safety and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” for the media to show it.
A whole new board and management has since taken more than the NLC and So far have taken steps to end corruption in the establishment.
A Condition Stability Company (SSA) investigation identified the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered sufficient motive” for publicity with the media.
The probe into meant “information and facts protection breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was undertaken following then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote on the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to research.
Here's
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC corporation secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the security company’s “confidential” results and proposals.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to analyze the job of NLC employees from the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit determined specific media and studies that she claimed concerned these leaks.
During the letter outlining its results, the SSA told the NLC that even though shielding state information was “a legal very important directed at shielding the sovereignty and integrity in the state” this only applied to properly categorised facts.
Although it did not say so instantly, the SSA conclusions implied which the allegedly leaked information and facts didn't drop into this class.
Substantially, the SSA created it very clear that the need to guard condition information “would not protect against any personal from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.
The SSA investigation observed that the NLC facts involved in the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, but not labeled with regard to the prescripts from the Least Info Protection Benchmarks (MISS)”.
“The leakage in the appropriate delicate Formal NLC information and facts to the media will not pose a risk to national security,” the SSA stated, including that the impact of the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report uncovered “no evidence of the factual and incriminating character towards any of the suspected NLC staff members that can be identified from the information and data interrogated”.
In addition, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does present enough motive to get these types of uncovered inside the media”.
Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs all through a session of Parliament’s trade, industry and Opposition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which information and facts “stolen” from the NLC was despatched into the US, in which he claimed it had been currently being bought to fund a smear campaign against the NLC.
He was repeating equivalent claims he had Earlier manufactured in Parliament, which incorporated ad hominem attacks on GroundUp which reporter but was watchful not to call either.
“I arrived right here Within this August property previous calendar year and documented to honourable customers that information about our beneficiaries has become stolen and set in a single point out in the usa,” he advised MPs.
“We named to the Point out Protection Agency to come explore the make a difference since we're acquiring reviews that our details is creating dollars for media platforms and journalists,” he reported. “There was discuss, of course from 1 supply, one particular media, that spoke A great deal about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but did not convey to MPs the SSA investigation were finished Nearly a 12 months before.
Proactive funding was at the guts in the looting of your lottery. It side-stepped the conventional grant course of action. The NLC could alone identify a venture to fund and appoint a non-earnings organisation to oversee it.
Right after Nevhutanda 1st advised Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to analyze the supposed breach, the South African Nationwide Editors Discussion board issued an announcement indicating that his remarks mirrored “an especially dangerous Mind-set in which the media is staying blamed for your NLC’s inherent challenges”.
“Rather then investigating why hundreds of thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has rather made an effort to cast doubt on the integrity of your journalists associated and has questioned the SSA to analyze their resources.”
Proactive assignments designed key
Protection flaws discovered while in the NLC grant funding program over the SSA’s investigation, seem to are applied as an excuse through the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded jobs from its central grants method.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding assignments was heightened to ‘solution’ and initiatives have been removed from the grant funding system and preserved manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information and facts Place of work, Govt Supervisor Legal so as to safeguard [the] data,” Nene reported in her affidavit.
“There was many inner dialogue, with many forwards and backwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was in a senior situation for the NLC at time, explained to GroundUp. “In the long run, the decision was taken to eliminate many of the proactive tasks within the method and limit entry to a handful of folks”.
Some in that handful of individuals have been implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned through the NLC a number of years back, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery cash. He obtained R4.three-million from lottery funds allocated to make a library and museum elaborate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he employed to make a dwelling in an upmarket gated growth in Pretoria. The property is one of many paid out for with lottery funds which were frozen following the Asset Forfeiture Unit received a preservation purchase in December 2022.
The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed as the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was close to high-ups during the ANC leadership, previous NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated in the corruption which overcome the NLC on their enjoy.
Also implicated are former board members William Huma, who resigned just after he was confronted with evidence of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who's got because died.
Every time a new administration, such as the full board and govt, took over in the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they uncovered a “chaotic mess” within the documentation referring to proactive funding, A great deal of which was paper-based. Key files were being lacking. Documents held for safekeeping by document storage enterprise Metrofile were signed out and in no way returned.
The NLC was in a position to recover copies of some ตรวจ paperwork from its Mimecast email archiving system as well as laptops in their assistants and assistance team.
News reports
In his 1 December 2018 letter, dealt with to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has famous with grave issue achievable information safety breaches as well as unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential details received as a result of executing official features while in the Fee by NLC staff members. The things to do are meant to undermine the integrity of your Fee when disrupting the productive features [in the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational harm to the Fee as being the custodian of personal information entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His ask for for your SSA to analyze was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC enterprise secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at the moment going through a disciplinary inquiry after she was unsuccessful in authorized motion to put aside conclusions of irregular expenditure on her observe.
The goal of her affidavit, Nene said, was “to document the gatherings which transpired relating to info safety breaches with the Nationwide Lotteries Commission”.
She mentioned many information experiences which she claimed were being the effects of those “breaches” (see at the end of this text).
Nene claimed that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that considered one of its staff members, Sello Qhino, had “supplied her categorised NLC Information and facts and persistently inspired her to provide the data to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle on the number of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman just after attempts to boost The difficulty internally were dismissed, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an 18 November 2018 short article in the Everyday Dispatch about the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene said that the NLC identified and after that suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an employee in the NLC’s East London Workplace, who was the companion and the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s three kids.
Rungqu and Makatse consider Rungqu was punished mainly because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, with the NLC shelling out R470,000 on lawyers to depict it, but was discovered not guilty and permitted to return to operate.
“The typical Consider these article content is [they require] categorised facts associated with proactive funding jobs,” Nene stated in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out on the spouse and children house to take the heat off her and his kids. Facing homelessness, he moved into an Office environment within an vacant factory belonging to a pal.
Equally Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation method meant to recognise the damage a lot of people endured with the palms with the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, economic payment are predicted.
“Some folks had been truly influenced extremely negatively by this … This is de facto agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Each day Maverick last calendar year.
“I satisfied a couple of these people. It was just so heart-wrenching that their total life happen to be turned the wrong way up,” explained Scholtz.
Between those she met were being Qhino and Makatse.
Protected platform necessary for whistleblowers
The SSA identified the absence at the time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn towards the media.
“Failure to possess a committed anti-corruption channel will bring about employees presenting this sort of instances beyond the NLC,” the SSA mentioned in its conclusions.
“Offered the magnitude of corruption in condition establishments, it remains important that it ensures that the NLC complies with all safety prescripts Which its aim is on making certain that illegal and irregular carry out is adequately mitigated against and by ensuring an satisfactory channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out devoid of staying intimidated.”
It proposed which the NLC create a “Safe and sound channel” for employees to deliver information on any “untoward exercise” that could not reduce or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, based upon the Secured Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is really a need.”
Media studies Nene listed
A 10 December 2017 report during the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Overall health and Fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor on the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The posting experienced elements of information not obtainable in the general public area, thus boosting issue on interior Info protection breaches. The allegations from the media were being independently investigated,” Nene reported. “Nevertheless, employees responsible for divulging categorised facts have but to be determined”;
A 28 January 2018 write-up released through the Dally Dispatch “citing various allegations from your Limpopo Mirror posting printed on ten December 2017 and a new allegation referring to a former worker with the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed for that menace induced on the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 post in the Lowvelder regarding the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has claimed how, Regardless of acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been completed. “The Lowvelder posting contained categorized information with regard to NLC policy, elevating further considerations of inside information safety breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, however [it] highlighted the heightened info security dangers within the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a few dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Principal Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene stated GroundUp experienced verified in its story that it was based on leaked NLC paperwork. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Entry to Information and facts) request for facts regarding the challenge, she stated