Previous Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the Condition Security Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of documents that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s corporation secretary at the time stated media studies she stated ended up depending on “stolen” facts within an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It observed the data wasn't a issue of condition security and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “ample motive” for the media to show it.
A new board and management has given that taken more than the NLC and Up to now have taken actions to finish corruption in the institution.
A Point out Protection Agency (SSA) investigation found the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “furnished sufficient motive” for publicity with the media.
The probe into meant “data safety breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was undertaken immediately after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote for the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to investigate.
Here is
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by presently suspended NLC firm secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security agency’s “private” conclusions and proposals.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to analyze the position of NLC employees in the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered certain media and stories that she claimed involved these leaks.
Inside the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA instructed the NLC that when guarding point out data was “a lawful imperative geared toward shielding the sovereignty and integrity on the state” this only placed on correctly categorised details.
Although it did not say so specifically, the SSA results implied that the allegedly leaked info did not fall into this group.
Significantly, the SSA made it crystal clear that the need to secure condition information and facts “doesn't avert any particular person from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.
The SSA investigation observed the NLC details associated with the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, although not classified in terms of the prescripts with the Minimum Data Security Specifications (Miss out on)”.
“The leakage with the applicable delicate official NLC details for the media will not pose a threat to countrywide protection,” the SSA explained, including which the impression in the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report discovered “no proof of a factual and incriminating character towards any in the suspected NLC personnel that can be identified from the knowledge and data interrogated”.
It also said that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does present ample motive to acquire these kinds of uncovered within the media”.
Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda informed MPs during a session of Parliament’s trade, sector and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which facts “stolen” within the NLC was despatched to your US, where by he claimed it absolutely was staying marketed to fund a smear campaign against the NLC.
He was repeating similar promises he had Beforehand designed in Parliament, which incorporated ad hominem attacks on GroundUp and this reporter but was very careful not to name possibly.
“I came right here Within this August household last year and claimed to honourable associates that information about our beneficiaries has long been stolen and place in a single point out in America,” he told MPs.
“We named to the Condition Protection Agency to come investigate the subject mainly because we have been receiving reports that our information is generating revenue for media platforms and journalists,” he reported. “There was discuss, needless to say from 1 resource, a person media, that spoke A great deal about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but didn't explain to MPs which the SSA investigation had been concluded Practically a year earlier.
Proactive funding was at the center of the looting on the lottery. It facet-stepped the conventional grant process. The NLC could by itself identify a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-profit organisation to oversee it.
Right after Nevhutanda initially explained to Parliament in 2018 that he experienced requested the SSA to investigate the supposed breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Discussion board issued an announcement declaring that his remarks reflected “an extremely dangerous Angle wherever 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 tried to Forged doubt to the integrity from the journalists concerned and has asked the SSA to analyze their sources.”
Proactive initiatives manufactured mystery
Protection flaws identified inside the NLC grant funding system in the SSA’s investigation, seem to have already been employed being an justification through the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded projects from its central grants technique.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding projects was heightened to ‘secret’ and tasks ended up faraway from the grant funding method and taken care of manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Details Business office, Govt Supervisor Lawful as a way to safeguard [the] data,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.
“There was loads of interior dialogue, with many forwards and backwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a supply, who was in the senior placement with the NLC at time, told GroundUp. “Eventually, the decision was taken to eliminate the many proactive tasks in the procedure and limit usage of a handful of men and women”.
Some in that handful of people were being implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned through the NLC a number of yrs ago, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He obtained R4.3-million from lottery money allocated to construct a library and museum intricate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Audio and Arts Expo) which he utilised to develop a property in an upmarket gated advancement in Pretoria. The home is among various paid out for with lottery funds which were frozen after the Asset Forfeiture Device acquired a preservation order in December 2022.
The politically-linked Nevhutanda, who was appointed because the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was close to superior-ups from the ANC leadership, previous NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated while in the corruption which overwhelmed the NLC on their check out.
Also implicated are former board members William Huma, who resigned after he was confronted with evidence of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, that has because died.
When a new administration, such as the complete board and govt, took about on the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found out a “chaotic mess” within the documentation associated with proactive funding, A great deal of which was paper-based. Important files were lacking. Documents held for safekeeping by document storage business Metrofile were signed out and never ever returned.
The NLC was capable to Recuperate copies of some ตัว หวย files from its Mimecast e mail archiving process and also the laptops in their assistants and guidance personnel.
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 possible data security breaches plus the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private details received on account of carrying out official capabilities within the Commission by NLC staff members. The activities are meant to undermine the integrity of the Fee though disrupting the helpful capabilities [on the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational harm towards the Fee since 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 corporation secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at the moment facing a disciplinary inquiry immediately after she was unsuccessful in legal action to set aside conclusions of irregular expenditure on her watch.
The purpose of her affidavit, Nene claimed, was “to record the activities which transpired regarding information security breaches in the National Lotteries Commission”.
She outlined different news reviews which she claimed had been the outcomes of such “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this information).
Nene reported that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that considered one of its personnel, Sello Qhino, had “delivered her categorized NLC Info and persistently inspired her to provide the knowledge to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle with a series of dodgy lottery-funded initiatives in Kuruman right after makes an attempt to lift the issue internally have been disregarded, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an eighteen November 2018 post while in the Day by day Dispatch regarding the misappropriation of Lottery money, Nene explained the NLC determined and afterwards suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel from the NLC’s East London Office environment, who was the lover plus the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s three small children.
Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished mainly because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, with the NLC paying out R470,000 on lawyers to stand for it, but was identified not responsible and permitted to return to work.
“The prevalent Think about these articles or blog posts is that [they include] labeled information and facts referring to proactive funding assignments,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your family house to take the warmth off her and his small children. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an Business within an empty manufacturing unit belonging to an acquaintance.
Both equally Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation process meant to recognise the harm some people endured in the palms from the NLC. Apologies and, occasionally, economic payment are envisioned.
“Some folks were being actually influenced pretty negatively by this … This is basically agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day by day Maverick last year.
“I met a few these folks. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their whole life are turned the wrong way up,” mentioned Scholtz.
Amongst These she achieved ended up Qhino and Makatse.
Protected System wanted for whistleblowers
The SSA uncovered the absence at the time of an appropriate channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show for the media.
“Failure to have a focused anti-corruption channel will cause workers presenting this kind of conditions outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its findings.
“Offered the magnitude of corruption in condition institutions, it stays very important that it ensures that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts Which its target is on making sure that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated against and by making certain an adequate channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward conduct devoid of getting intimidated.”
It proposed that the NLC build a “Safe and sound channel” for workers to deliver info on any “untoward exercise” that may not reduce or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, dependant on the Shielded Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, can be a requirement.”
Media stories Nene detailed
A ten December 2017 report within the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Health Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored intently with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and owner in the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The posting experienced features of information not obtainable in the public area, thus increasing problem on internal Information stability breaches. The allegations from the media have been independently investigated,” Nene stated. “However, workforce chargeable for divulging categorized information and facts have nevertheless to become determined”;
A 28 January 2018 posting printed because of the Dally Dispatch “citing numerous allegations through the Limpopo Mirror short article posted on 10 December 2017 in addition to a new allegation associated with a former staff from the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed with the danger brought about to your 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 done. “The Lowvelder report contained classified facts when it comes to NLC coverage, boosting additional problems of internal details protection breaches,” Nene reported in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, nevertheless [it] highlighted the heightened details safety hazards inside the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Primary Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp had verified in its Tale that it was according to leaked NLC files. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Use of Details) ask for for information regarding the project, she claimed