Lottery bosses turned to Point out Protection Company to analyze leaks

Lottery bosses turned to Point out Protection Company to analyze leaks

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Former Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda questioned the State Safety Company (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of paperwork that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s corporation secretary at some time detailed media stories she said had been based on “stolen” details in an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It discovered the information was not a matter of state stability and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” for your media to show it.
A different board and administration has because taken more than the NLC and thus far have taken steps to end corruption at the establishment.
A State Protection Agency (SSA) investigation uncovered the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “furnished enough motive” for exposure from the media.

The probe into supposed “information and facts stability breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was carried out after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote to your SSA in December 2018 requesting it to investigate.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC business secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the security company’s “confidential” results and recommendations.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to investigate the job of NLC staff inside the alleged leaking of information, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered distinct media and experiences that she claimed involved these leaks.

In the letter outlining its findings, the SSA instructed the NLC that even though safeguarding condition data was “a legal essential aimed at shielding the sovereignty and integrity in the point out” this only placed on appropriately labeled info.

Although it did not say so specifically, the SSA findings implied which the allegedly leaked information and facts didn't drop into this class.

Significantly, the SSA manufactured it very clear that the necessity to safeguard point out facts “won't avert any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.

The SSA investigation located the NLC info linked to the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in mother nature, but not categorized regarding the prescripts of the Minimum Info Safety Standards (Overlook)”.

“The leakage of the related sensitive Formal NLC info on the media isn't going to pose a menace to countrywide safety,” the SSA stated, incorporating the impression with the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report discovered “no evidence of a factual and incriminating character versus any in the suspected NLC employees which could be recognized from the knowledge and information interrogated”.

What's more, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities throughout the NLC and at its beneficiaries does supply sufficient motive to acquire these types of uncovered from the media”.

Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda instructed MPs all through a session of Parliament’s trade, field and Competitors portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” in which information and facts “stolen” with the NLC was sent to your US, the place he claimed it absolutely was staying sold to fund a smear marketing campaign against the NLC.

He was repeating very similar statements he had Beforehand manufactured in Parliament, which involved advertisement hominem attacks on GroundUp which reporter but was very careful not to call both.

“I arrived below Within this August home previous yr and noted to honourable associates that details about our beneficiaries has become stolen and put in a single condition in America,” he instructed MPs.

“We known as within the Point out Safety Agency to come take a look at the subject simply because we have been obtaining stories that our information is generating money for media platforms and journalists,” he said. “There have been chat, not surprisingly from one particular source, a person media, that spoke Significantly about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda stated (referring to GroundUp), but failed to tell MPs which the SSA investigation had been finished Pretty much a calendar year previously.

Proactive funding was at the heart in the looting of your lottery. It aspect-stepped the normal grant process. The NLC could by itself discover a venture to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to oversee it.

Right after Nevhutanda first told Parliament in 2018 that he experienced requested the SSA to analyze the supposed breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a statement stating that his remarks reflected “a particularly perilous Perspective where by the media is getting blamed for your NLC’s inherent troubles”.

“Rather then investigating why hundreds of thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has as an alternative tried to Solid question within the integrity in the journalists involved and has questioned the SSA to research their sources.”

Proactive initiatives made key
Safety flaws identified in the NLC grant funding process through the SSA’s investigation, surface to happen to be utilised as an justification from the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded jobs from its central grants technique.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding assignments was heightened to ‘mystery’ and initiatives were being faraway from the grant funding program and managed manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Office, Govt Manager Authorized so that you can safeguard [the] facts,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.

“There was a great deal of interior discussion, with a lot of backwards and forwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a supply, who was in the senior place in the NLC at enough time, informed GroundUp. “In the end, the decision was taken to get rid of all the proactive assignments within the system and Restrict access to a handful of persons”.

Some in that handful of people had been implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned from the NLC several decades back, has long been implicated in corruption involving lottery cash. He gained R4.3-million from lottery funds allocated to build a library and museum complex in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Audio and Arts Expo) which he utilized to develop a residence in an upmarket gated development in Pretoria. The house is among several paid for with lottery money that were frozen after the Asset Forfeiture Unit acquired a preservation purchase in December 2022.

The politically-linked Nevhutanda, who was appointed as being the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to higher-ups while in the ANC Management, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief working officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated within the corruption which confused the NLC on their look at.

Also implicated are previous board customers William Huma, who resigned just after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who may have since died.

Each time a new administration, such as the whole board and executive, took more than at the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they discovered a “chaotic mess” during the documentation referring to proactive funding, A lot of which was paper-based mostly. Important documents have been missing. Documents held for safekeeping by doc storage enterprise Metrofile were signed out and hardly ever returned.

The NLC was in a position to Get better copies of some หุ้น ชอง 9 paperwork from its Mimecast e-mail archiving process and the laptops of their assistants and aid staff.

Information studies
In his one December 2018 letter, dealt with to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has observed with grave worry doable facts safety breaches as well as the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private facts acquired on account of accomplishing official features within the Fee by NLC workforce. The actions are intended to undermine the integrity on the Fee while disrupting the successful features [on the NLC] and producing insurmountable reputational hurt into the Fee given that the custodian of personal information entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

His ask for to the SSA to research was supported within an affidavit by suspended NLC enterprise secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.

Nene is at this time experiencing a disciplinary inquiry soon after she was unsuccessful in legal motion to set aside results of irregular expenditure on her view.

The goal of her affidavit, Nene explained, was “to file the occasions which transpired regarding info protection breaches at the National Lotteries Commission”.

She detailed several information reports which she claimed had been the outcomes of these “breaches” (see at the end of this post).

Nene claimed that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that amongst its workforce, Sello Qhino, experienced “offered her classified NLC Information and persistently inspired her to deliver the knowledge to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle with a number of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman after makes an attempt to lift the issue internally were being ignored, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an 18 November 2018 short article during the Day-to-day Dispatch concerning the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene stated that the NLC discovered and after that suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an staff during the NLC’s East London Place of work, who was the husband or wife along with the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few little ones.

Rungqu and Makatse feel Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, While using the NLC spending R470,000 on legal professionals to symbolize it, but was discovered not responsible and permitted to return to work.

“The frequent factor in these articles is usually that [they require] labeled details associated with proactive funding tasks,” Nene said in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out with the spouse and children dwelling to go ahead and take warmth off her and his kids. Dealing with homelessness, he moved into an Business in an empty manufacturing unit belonging to a pal.

Equally Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation method meant to recognise the damage a number of people endured with the hands with the NLC. Apologies and, occasionally, financial payment are envisioned.

“Some people had been actually affected extremely negatively by this … This is basically painful,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Daily Maverick last 12 months.

“I met a number of these people. It had been just so coronary heart-wrenching that their whole lives are already turned the wrong way up,” reported Scholtz.

Among Individuals she fulfilled ended up Qhino and Makatse.

Harmless System essential for whistleblowers
The SSA uncovered the absence at some time of an appropriate channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn on the media.

“Failure to possess a focused anti-corruption channel will result in workers presenting these types of conditions outside of the NLC,” the SSA stated in its findings.

“Specified the magnitude of corruption in condition establishments, it remains essential that it ensures that the NLC complies with all safety prescripts Which its concentration is on making sure that unlawful and irregular conduct is adequately mitigated in opposition to and by making sure an sufficient channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward conduct with no getting intimidated.”

It encouraged that the NLC establish a “Harmless channel” for workers to offer information on any “untoward exercise” that may not prevent or discourage employees from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, according to the Shielded Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is usually a prerequisite.”

Media reviews Nene listed
A 10 December 2017 report in the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Exercise Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and operator with the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The article had aspects of knowledge not available in the general public area, therefore boosting worry on inner Facts protection breaches. The allegations from the media have been independently investigated,” Nene explained. “Even so, staff answerable for divulging categorized information have still to become discovered”;
A 28 January 2018 report posted from the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations in the Limpopo Mirror write-up released on ten December 2017 and a new allegation referring to a former employee through the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for your risk triggered for the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 article in the Lowvelder regarding the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has reported how, Regardless of getting R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been accomplished. “The Lowvelder post contained categorised details when it comes to NLC coverage, boosting more issues of inside details security breaches,” Nene claimed in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence regarding these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, having said that [it] highlighted the heightened information and facts safety threats within the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Key Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp experienced verified in its story that it was depending on leaked NLC documents. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Usage of Information) ask for for particulars regarding the undertaking, she stated