Former Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Point out Security Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of files that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s organization secretary at enough time mentioned media reviews she explained ended up based on “stolen” info in an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It observed the knowledge was not a matter of point out protection and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “enough motive” to the media to expose it.
A completely new board and management has given that taken over the NLC and To date have taken measures to end corruption for the institution.
A State Protection Company (SSA) investigation discovered the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered ample motive” for exposure with the media.
The probe into intended “information and facts security breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was carried out after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote towards the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to investigate.
Here's
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by currently suspended NLC business secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the safety agency’s “private” results and suggestions.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to research the part of NLC employees in the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit identified precise media and reviews that she claimed associated these leaks.
Inside the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA informed the NLC that when guarding condition information and facts was “a legal essential targeted at protecting the sovereignty and integrity of the point out” this only placed on correctly labeled info.
Although it did not say so specifically, the SSA conclusions implied the allegedly leaked information did not tumble into this category.
Drastically, the SSA designed it apparent that the necessity to defend state data “won't reduce any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminal activity”.
The SSA investigation located the NLC information and facts involved in the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in mother nature, but not categorised regarding the prescripts from the Minimal Information Safety Requirements (Overlook)”.
“The leakage of the suitable delicate Formal NLC information and facts to the media would not pose a menace to nationwide security,” the SSA reported, introducing the effect from the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report found “no proof of a factual and incriminating mother nature in opposition to any from the suspected NLC workforce which could be recognized from the data and information interrogated”.
It also said that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities throughout the NLC and at its beneficiaries does offer sufficient motive to obtain this sort of exposed from the media”.
Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda told MPs in the course of a session of Parliament’s trade, sector and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” in which info “stolen” in the NLC was despatched into the US, wherever he claimed it had been getting sold to fund a smear marketing campaign towards the NLC.
He was repeating similar statements he had Earlier produced in Parliament, which bundled ad hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was mindful not to call either.
“I came below Within this August household last yr and described to honourable members that details about our beneficiaries has actually been stolen and set in a single condition in the united states,” he instructed MPs.
“We identified as over the Point out Protection Agency to come consider the make a difference simply because we are having stories that our data is producing money for media platforms and journalists,” he claimed. “There's been talk, not surprisingly from a single resource, 1 media, that spoke A great deal about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda mentioned (referring to GroundUp), but didn't tell MPs that the SSA investigation had been accomplished Pretty much a year earlier.
Proactive funding was at the heart in the looting on the lottery. It aspect-stepped the conventional grant course of action. The NLC could by itself establish a job to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to supervise it.
Soon after Nevhutanda very first informed Parliament in 2018 that he experienced requested the SSA to investigate the meant breach, the South African National Editors Forum issued a press release indicating that his remarks mirrored “a very unsafe Perspective in which the media is becoming blamed for the NLC’s inherent complications”.
“In lieu of investigating why hundreds of thousands can not be accounted for, the NLC has as a substitute tried to Solid question around the integrity with the journalists involved and has requested the SSA to analyze their resources.”
Proactive tasks designed secret
Safety flaws recognized from the NLC grant funding procedure throughout the SSA’s investigation, look to are already applied being an excuse with the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants method.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding jobs was heightened to ‘solution’ and jobs were faraway from the grant funding program and managed manually under the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Data Office, Executive Supervisor Legal as a way to safeguard [the] facts,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.
“There was plenty of internal discussion, with lots of back and forth, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a supply, who was in the senior situation for the NLC at time, instructed GroundUp. “Eventually, the choice was taken to get rid of every one of the proactive assignments in the procedure and limit use of a handful of men and women”.
Some in that handful of people ended up implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned in the NLC quite a few yrs back, has been implicated in corruption involving lottery cash. He received R4.3-million from lottery cash allotted to build a library and museum sophisticated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Audio and Arts Expo) which he made use of to create a household within an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The property is among quite a few paid out for with lottery cash that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Device obtained a preservation buy 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 close to higher-ups while in the ANC leadership, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated while in the corruption which overcome the NLC on their own view.
Also implicated are former board customers William Huma, who resigned after he was confronted with evidence of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who has due to the fact died.
Any time a new administration, such as the full board and govt, took around within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they discovered a “chaotic mess” during the documentation concerning proactive funding, A great deal of which was paper-based mostly. Crucial files ended up missing. Documents held for safekeeping by document storage corporation Metrofile had been signed out and hardly ever returned.
The NLC was in the position to recover copies of some ตรวจ สลาก files from its Mimecast electronic mail archiving technique as well as the laptops in their assistants and assist employees.
Information reports
In his one December 2018 letter, dealt with to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has famous with grave issue feasible information and facts security breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information obtained because of doing Formal features from the Fee by NLC workforce. The activities are meant to undermine the integrity of your Fee even though disrupting the productive features [from the NLC] and creating insurmountable reputational hurt to your Commission as the custodian of non-public details entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His ask for to the SSA to investigate was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC company secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at this time dealing with a disciplinary inquiry just after she was unsuccessful in legal action to put aside conclusions of irregular expenditure on her view.
The objective of her affidavit, Nene claimed, was “to record the functions which transpired regarding information security breaches in the National Lotteries Commission”.
She outlined numerous news reports which she claimed were the results of such “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this text).
Nene explained that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that one among its staff, Sello Qhino, experienced “offered her classified NLC Facts 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 immediately after attempts to raise The problem internally were being ignored, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an 18 November 2018 report from the Daily Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene claimed which the NLC determined after which you can suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an staff from the NLC’s East London Business, who was the husband or wife plus the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few small children.
Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished due to the fact Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, While using the NLC shelling out R470,000 on legal professionals to depict it, but was found not guilty and permitted to return to operate.
“The common Consider these article content is [they require] categorised information referring to proactive funding assignments,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your family house to go ahead and take warmth off her and his small children. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an Business in an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a colleague.
The two Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation course of action intended to recognise the hurt a lot of people suffered for the hands with the NLC. Apologies and, in some instances, money payment are anticipated.
“Some persons were genuinely afflicted very negatively by this … This is absolutely agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz explained to the Daily Maverick final yr.
“I satisfied a number of these men and women. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their whole 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 discovered the absence at some time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show towards the media.
“Failure to have a focused anti-corruption channel will result in workers presenting this sort of situations outside of the NLC,” the SSA mentioned in its findings.
“Offered the magnitude of corruption in state establishments, it stays vital that it ensures that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts and that its focus is on making sure that illegal and irregular perform is adequately mitigated versus and by guaranteeing an adequate channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out with out remaining intimidated.”
It advised which the NLC establish a “Risk-free channel” for workers to deliver information on any “untoward activity” that might not reduce or discourage workers from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers coverage, determined by the Shielded Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is usually a need.”
Media experiences Nene listed
A ten December 2017 report during the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor from the Limpopo Mirror, to expose NLC corruption. “The write-up experienced features of information not obtainable in the general public domain, thereby increasing concern on inside Information stability breaches. The allegations within the media had been independently investigated,” Nene explained. “On the other hand, workforce chargeable for divulging labeled details have but to be determined”;
A 28 January 2018 post released through the Dally Dispatch “citing various allegations through the Limpopo Mirror posting published on 10 December 2017 and also a new allegation concerning a previous employee via the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed to the risk induced for the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 posting during the Lowvelder regarding the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has documented how, Despite obtaining R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has never been done. “The Lowvelder report contained categorised data when it comes to NLC coverage, raising even more concerns of inner facts security breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, nevertheless [it] highlighted the heightened data protection challenges throughout the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Main Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp had confirmed in its Tale that it was according to leaked NLC files. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Advertising of Access to Information and facts) request for aspects regarding the project, she reported