Former Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Condition Security Company (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of files that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s company secretary at the time stated media reports she stated had been based upon “stolen” details within an affidavit for that SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It identified the data wasn't a make a difference of condition safety and the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” to the media to reveal it.
A completely new board and administration has because taken more than the NLC and To this point have taken steps to finish corruption within the institution.
A Point out Stability Company (SSA) investigation located the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “furnished sufficient motive” for exposure by the media.
The probe into intended “facts security breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was carried out right after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote to your SSA in December 2018 requesting it to analyze.
Here's
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC corporation secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety company’s “private” findings and recommendations.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to investigate the role of NLC staff during the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered distinct media and reviews that she claimed associated these leaks.
Inside the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA instructed the NLC that although preserving point out info was “a legal essential directed at preserving the sovereignty and integrity of your condition” this only placed on correctly classified details.
Even though it didn't say so specifically, the SSA findings implied the allegedly leaked info did not tumble into this classification.
Appreciably, the SSA created it apparent that the necessity to guard condition information and facts “doesn't avert any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.
The SSA investigation identified which the NLC information involved in the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in nature, but not categorized concerning the prescripts from the Minimum Information and facts Protection Specifications (MISS)”.
“The leakage from the appropriate sensitive Formal NLC information and facts for the media would not pose a threat to national security,” the SSA reported, adding which the effect from the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report observed “no proof of a factual and incriminating mother nature in opposition to any of your suspected NLC personnel that could be identified from the data and knowledge interrogated”.
Additionally, it stated that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities inside the NLC and at its beneficiaries does present enough motive to possess these uncovered from the media”.
Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda explained to MPs for the duration of a session of Parliament’s trade, marketplace and Competitiveness portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” where data “stolen” in the NLC was sent towards the US, exactly where he claimed it had been being bought to fund a smear campaign in opposition to the NLC.
He was repeating equivalent claims he experienced Formerly manufactured in Parliament, which bundled advertisement hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was cautious not to name both.
“I arrived below With this August home past 12 months and documented to honourable customers that information about our beneficiaries continues to be stolen and set in a single point out in America,” he informed MPs.
“We identified as around the Point out Stability Agency to return check into the subject simply because we've been finding reviews that our information is generating income for media platforms and journalists,” he reported. “There has been speak, of course from one particular source, a person media, that spoke Significantly about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but didn't tell MPs that the SSA investigation were completed Nearly a year previously.
Proactive funding was at the center on the looting on the lottery. It side-stepped the normal grant approach. The NLC could by itself determine a project to fund and appoint a non-profit organisation to oversee it.
Just after Nevhutanda very first advised Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to investigate the meant breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Discussion board issued an announcement stating that his remarks mirrored “an extremely risky Frame of mind where by the media is getting blamed for your NLC’s inherent difficulties”.
“Rather then investigating why tens of millions can not be accounted for, the NLC has rather made an effort to Forged question over the integrity of your journalists associated and it has asked the SSA to analyze their sources.”
Proactive jobs manufactured mystery
Safety flaws determined in the NLC grant funding method over the SSA’s investigation, show up to have been applied as an justification via the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded initiatives from its central grants program.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding jobs was heightened to ‘secret’ and assignments were being faraway from the grant funding system and taken care of manually under the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information Workplace, Govt Manager Lawful as a way to safeguard [the] details,” Nene said in her affidavit.
“There was a lot of inner discussion, with a great deal of back and forth, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was in the senior place for the NLC at some time, informed GroundUp. “Ultimately, the decision was taken to get rid of all of the proactive assignments from the method and limit access to A few folks”.
Some in that handful of folks were implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned through the NLC various yrs in the past, has become implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He acquired R4.3-million from lottery resources allotted to create a library and museum sophisticated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he utilised to construct a house in an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The house is one of several paid out for with lottery cash which were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Device attained a preservation order in December 2022.
The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed given that the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was close to significant-ups within the ANC leadership, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main running officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated from the corruption which overcome the NLC on their watch.
Also implicated are previous board customers William Huma, who resigned following he was confronted with proof of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who's got due to the fact died.
Whenever a new administration, including the total board and govt, took in excess of within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they learned a “chaotic mess” inside the documentation concerning proactive funding, Significantly of which was paper-based mostly. Crucial documents had been lacking. Data files held for safekeeping by doc storage business Metrofile were signed out and never returned.
The NLC was able to recover copies of some ตรวจ หวย documents from its Mimecast email archiving program plus the laptops in their assistants and guidance staff members.
Information reviews
In his one December 2018 letter, resolved to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has famous with grave concern possible information protection breaches and also the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information acquired as a result of accomplishing official features within the Commission by NLC workforce. The routines are meant to undermine the integrity of your Commission whilst disrupting the successful features [with the NLC] and causing insurmountable reputational hurt to the Commission as the custodian of personal info entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His ask for for 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 soon after she was unsuccessful in lawful motion to put aside results of irregular expenditure on her view.
The goal of her affidavit, Nene mentioned, was “to history the functions which transpired relating to facts safety breaches for the National Lotteries Commission”.
She listed a variety of information experiences which she claimed had been the outcome of such “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this short article).
Nene stated that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that among its workforce, Sello Qhino, experienced “offered her classified NLC Information and persistently inspired her to supply the information to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle over a series of dodgy lottery-funded projects in Kuruman after makes an attempt to raise The problem internally had been disregarded, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an 18 November 2018 article while in the Everyday Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene mentioned the NLC discovered after which suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel from the NLC’s East London Workplace, who was the companion as well as the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few children.
Rungqu and Makatse feel Rungqu was punished due to the fact Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, with the NLC paying out R470,000 on legal professionals to depict it, but was identified not guilty and permitted to return to work.
“The common Think about these article content is the fact [they involve] categorised facts associated with proactive funding tasks,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out on the household residence to go ahead and take warmth off her and his children. Dealing with homelessness, he moved into an Business in an vacant manufacturing facility belonging to a colleague.
Each Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation course of action intended to recognise the damage many people experienced at the hands in the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, money payment are predicted.
“Some folks were really influenced extremely negatively by this … This is really unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Day by day Maverick final calendar year.
“I fulfilled a couple of these men and women. It absolutely was just so coronary heart-wrenching that their entire lives have been turned upside down,” mentioned Scholtz.
Amid People she satisfied had been Qhino and Makatse.
Secure platform essential for whistleblowers
The SSA uncovered the absence at some time of a suitable channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn to the media.
“Failure to possess a committed anti-corruption channel will lead to employees presenting these types of scenarios outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its findings.
“Provided the magnitude of corruption in point out establishments, it stays important that it ensures that the NLC complies with all security prescripts and that its emphasis is on making sure that unlawful and irregular perform is sufficiently mitigated towards and by making certain an ample channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out with no currently being intimidated.”
It proposed the NLC create a “Risk-free channel” for employees to deliver info on any “untoward activity” that would not prevent or discourage employees from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, determined by the Guarded Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is actually a need.”
Media reviews Nene stated
A ten December 2017 report inside the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and fitness and Physical fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor with the Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The short article experienced aspects of knowledge not readily available in the general public domain, thereby boosting issue on inside Data protection breaches. The allegations while in the media have been independently investigated,” Nene explained. “On the other hand, staff members chargeable for divulging labeled details have however to be recognized”;
A 28 January 2018 article released from the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations from your Limpopo Mirror short article published on 10 December 2017 and also a new allegation relating to a former employee with the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for your risk induced on the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 write-up inside the Lowvelder with regards to the misappropriation of NLC money involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, in spite of obtaining R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been completed. “The Lowvelder short article contained categorized info when it comes to NLC plan, raising further more worries of interior data security breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof regarding these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, nevertheless [it] highlighted the heightened details protection challenges in the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Principal Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene mentioned GroundUp had verified in its Tale that it absolutely was based on leaked NLC files. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Access to Information) ask for for information in regards to the task, she mentioned