Former National Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the State Protection Company (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of documents that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s business secretary at enough time detailed media stories she mentioned ended up determined by “stolen” information and facts in an affidavit to the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It uncovered the information was not a make any difference of state safety and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” with the media to reveal it.
A brand new board and administration has due to the fact taken more than the NLC and thus far have taken actions to finish corruption within the institution.
A Point out Protection Agency (SSA) investigation uncovered the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “supplied enough motive” for exposure with the media.
The probe into supposed “details protection breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was carried out immediately after 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 presently suspended NLC organization secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security agency’s “confidential” findings and recommendations.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to research the purpose of NLC employees while in the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered specific media and experiences that she claimed associated these leaks.
From the letter outlining its findings, the SSA instructed the NLC that whilst preserving condition data was “a lawful vital directed at guarding the sovereignty and integrity on the point out” this only applied to properly categorised info.
Even though it didn't say so specifically, the SSA results implied that the allegedly leaked information didn't tumble into this class.
Noticeably, the SSA manufactured it apparent that the need to secure condition info “would not avoid any individual from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminal activity”.
The SSA investigation found that the NLC facts linked to the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, but not categorized concerning the prescripts of the Minimal Data Safety Criteria (Miss out on)”.
“The leakage with the suitable delicate official NLC info to the media does not pose a danger to nationwide security,” the SSA reported, incorporating that the impression in the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report found “no proof of the factual and incriminating nature versus any in the suspected NLC workforce that can be discovered from the information and knowledge interrogated”.
Additionally, it said that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities in the NLC and at its beneficiaries does provide ample motive to possess these kinds of exposed while in the media”.
Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs through a session of Parliament’s trade, marketplace and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” wherein information and facts “stolen” with the NLC was sent to the US, where by he claimed it had been becoming marketed to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.
He was repeating equivalent promises he had Formerly made in Parliament, which provided advert hominem assaults on GroundUp and this reporter but was mindful not to call possibly.
“I came below in this August household very last calendar year and reported to honourable members that specifics of our beneficiaries has become stolen and set in one condition in America,” he explained to MPs.
“We named on the State Security Company to come check into the issue for the reason that we've been obtaining reviews that our information is building cash for media platforms and journalists,” he stated. “There's been talk, obviously from just one source, a person media, that spoke Considerably about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda said (referring to GroundUp), but didn't inform MPs the SSA investigation had been accomplished Practically a calendar year before.
Proactive funding was at the guts in the looting on the lottery. It side-stepped the conventional grant procedure. The NLC could itself discover a task to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to oversee it.
After Nevhutanda 1st instructed Parliament in 2018 that he experienced requested the SSA to research the intended breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a press release indicating that his remarks mirrored “an extremely dangerous Angle where by the media is remaining blamed with the NLC’s inherent troubles”.
“As an alternative to investigating why millions can not be accounted for, the NLC has as a substitute tried to cast doubt over the integrity from the journalists included and it has questioned the SSA to analyze their resources.”
Proactive jobs made magic formula
Security flaws identified during the NLC grant funding procedure in the SSA’s investigation, show up to are utilised as an excuse from the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants system.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding jobs was heightened to ‘key’ and jobs had been removed from the grant funding procedure and maintained manually under the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Office, Executive Manager Legal in an effort to safeguard [the] facts,” Nene reported in her affidavit.
“There was a lot of interior dialogue, with numerous forwards and backwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was inside of a senior posture for the NLC at time, told GroundUp. “Eventually, the decision was taken to eliminate the many proactive assignments from your program and limit usage of A few folks”.
Some in that handful of individuals were being implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned within the NLC many a long time back, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He been given R4.3-million from lottery cash allotted to create a library and museum complex in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Audio and Arts Expo) which he used to construct a household within an upmarket gated improvement in Pretoria. The house is one of various compensated for with lottery resources which were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Device attained a preservation get in December 2022.
The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed given that the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near significant-ups during the ANC Management, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main working officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated inside the corruption which overwhelmed the NLC on their own observe.
Also implicated are previous board customers William Huma, who resigned right after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who may have due to the fact died.
Whenever a new administration, such as the entire board and government, took around in the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found out a “chaotic mess” within the documentation regarding proactive funding, much of which was paper-primarily based. Essential paperwork ended up lacking. Data files held for safekeeping by doc storage enterprise Metrofile were signed out and hardly ever returned.
The NLC was able to Get better copies of some หวย ลาว ออก วัน นี้ สด paperwork from its Mimecast electronic mail archiving system along with the laptops in their assistants and guidance staff.
News reviews
In his 1 December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has mentioned with grave problem achievable data safety breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential info obtained on account of undertaking official capabilities from the Commission by NLC employees. The actions are intended to undermine the integrity of your Fee although disrupting the helpful capabilities [of the NLC] and creating insurmountable reputational harm into the Fee as being the custodian of non-public details entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His request with the SSA to research was supported within an affidavit by suspended NLC firm secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is presently facing a disciplinary inquiry soon after she was unsuccessful in lawful action to put aside results of irregular expenditure on her observe.
The goal of her affidavit, Nene reported, was “to record the occasions which transpired referring to information and facts safety breaches for the National Lotteries Fee”.
She stated various news reviews which she claimed were the results of these “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this short article).
Nene claimed that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that one among its personnel, Sello Qhino, had “provided her categorised NLC Data and persistently encouraged her to offer the information to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle on the number of dodgy lottery-funded projects in Kuruman just after attempts to boost The difficulty internally have been overlooked, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an eighteen November 2018 report in the Day-to-day Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene explained which the NLC recognized after which you can suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an employee inside the NLC’s East London Business, who was the partner as well as the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s three kids.
Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, Together with the NLC paying R470,000 on lawyers to represent it, but was observed not guilty and permitted to return to work.
“The common Consider these posts is the fact [they involve] categorized facts relating to proactive funding tasks,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out on the spouse and children dwelling to go ahead and take warmth off her and his little ones. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an Business within an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a colleague.
Equally Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation system meant to recognise the harm some people endured in the palms from the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, monetary payment are envisioned.
“Some folks ended up truly impacted pretty negatively by this … This is actually unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day by day Maverick past year.
“I met a few these folks. It was just so coronary 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 identified 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 dedicated anti-corruption channel will cause employees presenting these kinds of cases outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its conclusions.
“Given the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it remains vital 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 guaranteeing an enough channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out without having becoming intimidated.”
It recommended which the NLC set up a “safe channel” for workers to provide info on any “untoward activity” that could not avoid or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, dependant on the Safeguarded Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is really a necessity.”
Media experiences Nene outlined
A 10 December 2017 report while in the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Physical fitness 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 post had elements of data not out there in the general public domain, thus increasing problem on internal Information protection breaches. The allegations inside the media were independently investigated,” Nene reported. “Even so, workers responsible for divulging labeled information have nevertheless to be recognized”;
A 28 January 2018 posting published through the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations from the Limpopo Mirror write-up revealed on 10 December 2017 plus a new allegation regarding a previous worker with the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for the danger prompted to your organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 post in the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC resources involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has documented how, in spite of obtaining R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been accomplished. “The Lowvelder article contained labeled information with regard to NLC plan, raising even more concerns of inner data protection breaches,” Nene said in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regard 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 about a dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Key Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene mentioned GroundUp had verified in its story that it absolutely was based upon leaked NLC paperwork. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Access to Information and facts) request for details with regard to the task, she said