Lottery bosses turned to State Security Agency to investigate leaks

Lottery bosses turned to State Security Agency to investigate leaks

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Former Countrywide Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda questioned the State Stability Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of paperwork that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s corporation secretary at the time stated media reviews she reported had been according to “stolen” facts within an affidavit with the SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It identified the knowledge was not a subject of condition protection and the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “ample motive” for your media to expose it.
A fresh board and management has because taken more than the NLC and thus far have taken steps to end corruption at the establishment.
A State Stability Agency (SSA) investigation found the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “supplied sufficient motive” for publicity with the media.

The probe into meant “details stability breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was undertaken right after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote towards the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to analyze.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by presently suspended NLC enterprise secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security agency’s “private” findings and suggestions.
Nevhutanda asked the SSA to analyze the position of NLC staff from the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered certain media and studies that she claimed included these leaks.

Within the letter outlining its findings, the SSA advised the NLC that whilst defending state information and facts was “a legal crucial directed at defending the sovereignty and integrity on the state” this only applied to appropriately categorized facts.

Although it did not say so specifically, the SSA findings implied the allegedly leaked details didn't slide into this class.

Considerably, the SSA produced it obvious that the necessity to defend state information “will not reduce any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.

The SSA investigation identified which the NLC information and facts involved with the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in character, but not categorized with regard to the prescripts in the Minimum Facts Security Criteria (Skip)”.

“The leakage with the related sensitive official NLC facts towards the media isn't going to pose a menace to countrywide stability,” the SSA said, adding that the impact from the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report identified “no evidence of the factual and incriminating mother nature from any with the suspected NLC staff members that would be determined from the information and data interrogated”.

It also mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities inside the NLC and at its beneficiaries does deliver sufficient motive to have these types of exposed from the media”.

Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs during a session of Parliament’s trade, sector and Competitors portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which information and facts “stolen” from the NLC was sent towards the US, in which he claimed it had been currently being offered to fund a smear campaign towards the NLC.

He was repeating equivalent claims he experienced Earlier manufactured in Parliament, which provided ad hominem assaults on GroundUp and this reporter but was cautious not to call either.

“I arrived listed here On this August house very last yr and claimed to honourable associates that specifics of our beneficiaries is stolen and set in a single state in the united states,” he instructed MPs.

“We called about the Condition Stability Company to return look into the make a difference mainly because we have been finding experiences that our information is generating money for media platforms and journalists,” he said. “There have been communicate, certainly from a person supply, 1 media, that spoke A lot about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda said (referring to GroundUp), but did not tell MPs the SSA investigation had been concluded Nearly a 12 months earlier.

Proactive funding was at the center of your looting in the lottery. It aspect-stepped the traditional grant method. The NLC could by itself detect a venture to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to supervise it.

Just after Nevhutanda initial informed Parliament in 2018 that he had asked the SSA to investigate the intended breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Forum issued a press release saying that his remarks mirrored “a particularly unsafe Mind-set the place the media is remaining blamed for your NLC’s inherent challenges”.

“As an alternative to investigating why hundreds of thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has rather made an effort to Solid question to the integrity on the journalists concerned and has requested the SSA to investigate their resources.”

Proactive tasks produced key
Safety flaws recognized within the NLC grant funding procedure in the course of the SSA’s investigation, show up to are employed being an justification with the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants program.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding projects was heightened to ‘key’ and initiatives were being removed from the grant funding system and taken care of manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Office environment, Govt Supervisor Lawful so that you can safeguard [the] information,” Nene stated in her affidavit.

“There was a great deal of inside discussion, with many forwards and backwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was in the senior posture at the NLC at the time, informed GroundUp. “Ultimately, the decision was taken to remove all of the proactive tasks from your program and limit usage of a handful of folks”.

Some in that handful of people were being implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned with the NLC many many years back, has become implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He gained R4.three-million from lottery money allotted to build a library and museum advanced in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Music and Arts Expo) which he applied to build a residence in an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The property is one of a number of paid out for with lottery money that were frozen following the Asset Forfeiture Unit obtained a preservation order in December 2022.

The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed as the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near significant-ups from the ANC leadership, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated from the corruption which overcome the NLC on their own look at.

Also implicated are former board users William Huma, who resigned soon after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who may have considering that died.

When a new administration, including the overall board and executive, took in excess of within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they identified a “chaotic mess” from the documentation relating to proactive funding, Significantly of which was paper-dependent. Vital files were being lacking. Documents held for safekeeping by doc storage firm Metrofile had been signed out and in no way returned.

The NLC was capable of Recuperate copies of some หวย วัน นี้ documents from its Mimecast email archiving program plus the laptops in their assistants and guidance staff members.

Information stories
In his 1 December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has mentioned with grave concern possible information and facts protection breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential information and facts acquired as a result of accomplishing official features within the Fee by NLC employees. The functions are intended to undermine the integrity on the Fee whilst disrupting the productive capabilities [from the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational hurt to the Commission because the custodian of personal data entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

His request to the SSA to research was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC organization secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.

Nene is at present going through a disciplinary inquiry soon after she was unsuccessful in legal motion to put aside findings of irregular expenditure on her watch.

The goal of her affidavit, Nene explained, was “to record the situations which transpired regarding details stability breaches on the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.

She shown numerous news stories which she claimed had been the final results of such “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this text).

Nene reported that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that among its personnel, Sello Qhino, experienced “furnished her categorised NLC Details 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 overlooked, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 article inside the Each day Dispatch about the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene mentioned that the NLC recognized then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel while in the NLC’s East London Business office, who was the associate along with the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few young children.

Rungqu and Makatse feel Rungqu was punished since Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, Together with the NLC investing R470,000 on legal professionals to symbolize it, but was uncovered not guilty and permitted to return to operate.

“The typical Consider these articles is always that [they require] categorised information referring to proactive funding assignments,” Nene explained in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out with the spouse and children home to go ahead and take heat off her and his young children. Experiencing homelessness, he moved into an office in an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a buddy.

Each Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation course of action meant to recognise the damage some individuals endured on the arms of the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, financial compensation are expected.

“Some folks have been seriously influenced pretty negatively by this … This is de facto distressing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Each day Maverick previous year.

“I fulfilled a number of these people. It had been just so coronary heart-wrenching that their complete life happen to be turned the wrong way up,” said Scholtz.

Amongst All those she met have been Qhino and Makatse.

Safe and sound System desired for whistleblowers
The SSA found the absence at time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn on the media.

“Failure to have a devoted anti-corruption channel will cause personnel presenting these types of conditions beyond the NLC,” the SSA explained in its results.

“Provided the magnitude of corruption in state establishments, it stays vital that it makes certain that the NLC complies with all protection prescripts Which its emphasis is on ensuring that illegal and irregular perform is adequately mitigated from and by ensuring an enough channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward conduct without the need of becoming intimidated.”

It encouraged that the NLC establish a “Safe and sound channel” for workers to deliver info on any “untoward exercise” that may not prevent or discourage staff from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, determined by the Secured Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, can be a necessity.”

Media reports Nene listed
A ten December 2017 report from the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and fitness and Exercise Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and owner with the Limpopo Mirror, to expose NLC corruption. “The report experienced factors of data not obtainable in the public area, therefore raising issue on inner Facts safety breaches. The allegations in the media have been independently investigated,” Nene said. “On the other hand, employees answerable for divulging categorised facts have yet to be identified”;
A 28 January 2018 article printed from the Dally Dispatch “citing numerous allegations within the Limpopo Mirror short article posted on 10 December 2017 in addition to a new allegation regarding a former worker from the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed for your menace caused on the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 article while in the Lowvelder regarding the misappropriation of NLC cash involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has reported how, Regardless of getting R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been accomplished. “The Lowvelder write-up contained categorized data with regard to NLC coverage, raising further fears of inside details stability breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence regarding these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, having said that [it] highlighted the heightened data stability hazards in the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a few dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Major Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp experienced verified in its Tale that it was depending on leaked NLC paperwork. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Entry to Data) request for information with regards to the challenge, she claimed

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