Former Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Point out Security Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of documents that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s corporation secretary at some time mentioned media reports she stated had been determined by “stolen” data in an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It observed the information wasn't a subject of state protection and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” for the media to reveal it.
A fresh board and administration has considering that taken over the NLC and To this point have taken steps to finish corruption on the establishment.
A Condition Stability Company (SSA) investigation found that the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “presented sufficient motive” for exposure because of the media.
The probe into intended “facts protection breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was undertaken right after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote on the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to investigate.
Here's
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by now suspended NLC corporation secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety agency’s “private” findings and suggestions.
Nevhutanda asked the SSA to investigate the job of NLC team inside the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit identified distinct media and reports that she claimed included these leaks.
Within the letter outlining its results, the SSA advised the NLC that whilst protecting state information was “a legal very important directed at defending the sovereignty and integrity in the condition” this only applied to appropriately categorised info.
Although it did not say so straight, the SSA conclusions implied which the allegedly leaked details didn't drop into this class.
Appreciably, the SSA produced it apparent that the need to guard state details “would not avoid any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminal activity”.
The SSA investigation located the NLC information linked to the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in mother nature, but not categorized concerning the prescripts with the Minimal Information and facts Security Standards (Pass up)”.
“The leakage of the pertinent sensitive official NLC information and facts towards the media isn't going to pose a menace to countrywide security,” the SSA said, incorporating that the effect of your breaches was reputational.
The SSA report found “no evidence of the factual and incriminating mother nature from any of your suspected NLC workforce which could be determined from the information and facts interrogated”.
It also mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does supply sufficient motive to own these types of uncovered from the media”.
Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs for the duration of a session of Parliament’s trade, business and Level of competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which facts “stolen” in the NLC was sent to your US, where by he claimed it was being bought to fund a smear marketing campaign in opposition to the NLC.
He was repeating equivalent claims he experienced Formerly designed in Parliament, which provided ad hominem attacks on GroundUp which reporter but was very careful not to name possibly.
“I came here During this August property final calendar year and noted to honourable customers that specifics of our beneficiaries has actually been stolen and set in a single point out in America,” he explained to MPs.
“We known as about the Condition Protection Agency to come investigate the subject because we are obtaining reports that our info is generating money for media platforms and journalists,” he claimed. “There was chat, needless to say from 1 resource, just one media, that spoke A lot about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but did not notify MPs which the SSA investigation were accomplished Virtually a calendar year previously.
Proactive funding was at the guts in the looting of your lottery. It aspect-stepped the traditional grant method. The NLC could by itself detect a project to fund and appoint a non-earnings organisation to oversee it.
Immediately after Nevhutanda to start with explained to Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to analyze the meant breach, the South African Nationwide Editors Discussion board issued an announcement saying that his remarks mirrored “an especially dangerous Frame of mind exactly where the media is remaining blamed to the NLC’s inherent troubles”.
“As opposed to investigating why hundreds of thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has as a substitute made an effort to Forged question over the integrity in the journalists associated and has requested the SSA to analyze their sources.”
Proactive assignments designed top secret
Safety flaws determined from the NLC grant funding technique through the SSA’s investigation, surface to are utilized as an justification by the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded projects from its central grants procedure.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding tasks was heightened to ‘solution’ and projects were removed from the grant funding system and taken care of manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information and facts Business office, Govt Supervisor Authorized so that you can safeguard [the] information and facts,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
“There was a lot of inside dialogue, with plenty of forwards and backwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a resource, who was within a senior situation for the NLC at the time, advised GroundUp. “In the long run, the decision was taken to get rid of the many proactive initiatives within the process and limit usage of a handful of individuals”.
Some in that handful of people have been implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned from your NLC several decades ago, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He gained R4.three-million from lottery resources allocated to construct a library and museum intricate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Tunes and Arts Expo) which he used to construct a residence in an upmarket gated advancement in Pretoria. The house is one of a number of compensated for with lottery cash that were frozen after the Asset Forfeiture Device received a preservation order in December 2022.
The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed since the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to large-ups in the ANC Management, former NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main operating officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated during the corruption which overcome the NLC on their observe.
Also implicated are previous board members William Huma, who resigned immediately after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, that has since died.
Whenever a new administration, including the total board and government, took around at the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found a “chaotic mess” while in the documentation associated with proactive funding, Substantially of which was paper-primarily based. Essential documents were lacking. Data files held for safekeeping by document storage business Metrofile were signed out and hardly ever returned.
The NLC was ready to Recuperate copies of some ผล หวย files from its Mimecast electronic mail archiving method along with the laptops of their assistants and aid staff members.
News experiences
In his one December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has observed with grave problem probable data security breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private info received on account of executing official features during the Fee by NLC staff. The functions are meant to undermine the integrity of the Commission although disrupting the productive capabilities [of your NLC] and creating insurmountable reputational harm towards the Commission since the custodian of personal information entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His ask for to the SSA to investigate was supported within an affidavit by suspended NLC firm secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at the moment going through a disciplinary inquiry right after she was unsuccessful in lawful action to set aside conclusions of irregular expenditure on her view.
The objective of her affidavit, Nene said, was “to document the gatherings which transpired relating to details safety breaches for the Countrywide Lotteries Fee”.
She outlined many information reviews which she claimed had been the outcome of those “breaches” (see at the end of this text).
Nene said that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that certainly one of its staff, Sello Qhino, had “delivered her labeled NLC Data and persistently encouraged her to deliver the knowledge to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle with a series of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman after makes an attempt to lift The problem internally were dismissed, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an eighteen November 2018 article while in the Daily Dispatch with regards to the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene explained the NLC discovered after which suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel from the NLC’s East London Business, who was the partner and also the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s three youngsters.
Rungqu and Makatse imagine Rungqu was punished due to the fact Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, Using the NLC expending R470,000 on attorneys to symbolize it, but was found not responsible and permitted to return to work.
“The typical factor in these posts is the fact that [they involve] labeled info regarding proactive funding projects,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your loved ones household to go ahead and take warmth off her and his little ones. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an office within an empty manufacturing facility belonging to a buddy.
The two Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation system meant to recognise the harm many people suffered within the arms of the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, economic payment are anticipated.
“Some folks were being genuinely affected really negatively by this … This is admittedly agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz explained to the Day-to-day Maverick last yr.
“I fulfilled a few these persons. It absolutely was just so coronary heart-wrenching that their whole lives are turned the other way up,” said Scholtz.
Amongst Those people she met were Qhino and Makatse.
Secure platform necessary for whistleblowers
The SSA identified the absence at time of a proper channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show into the media.
“Failure to possess a devoted anti-corruption channel will bring about workforce presenting these types of situations beyond the NLC,” the SSA mentioned in its results.
“Presented the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it stays essential that it makes sure that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts Which its concentrate is on making certain that unlawful and irregular conduct is adequately mitigated against and by making certain an satisfactory channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out without the need of getting intimidated.”
It recommended which the NLC set up a “Harmless channel” for employees to supply info on any “untoward action” that could not avert or discourage staff from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, dependant on the Secured Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is actually a necessity.”
Media reports Nene stated
A 10 December 2017 report during the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Conditioning Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and owner from the Limpopo Mirror, to expose NLC corruption. “The write-up had components of information not accessible in the public area, therefore increasing problem on inner Facts stability breaches. The allegations during the media were being independently investigated,” Nene claimed. “On the other hand, personnel chargeable for divulging categorized information have still for being discovered”;
A 28 January 2018 report published because of the Dally Dispatch “citing many allegations with the Limpopo Mirror article released on ten December 2017 and a new allegation referring to a previous personnel by the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed to the menace brought about to 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 documented how, in spite of receiving R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been accomplished. “The Lowvelder write-up contained categorised data regarding NLC plan, elevating more fears of inner facts security breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence regarding these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, even so [it] highlighted the heightened information security dangers within the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Primary Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene reported GroundUp experienced verified in its story that it was according to leaked NLC documents. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Entry to Information) ask for for specifics regarding the project, she claimed