Lottery bosses turned to State Security Agency to research leaks

Lottery bosses turned to State Security Agency to research leaks

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Previous Nationwide Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the State Stability Company (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of documents that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s enterprise secretary at some time listed media stories she said have been based on “stolen” facts in an affidavit for that SSA.
The SSA did look into. It located the data was not a make a difference of point out stability and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “ample motive” for that media to show it.
A brand new board and management has considering that taken over the NLC and thus far have taken measures to end corruption at the institution.
A Point out Stability Agency (SSA) investigation identified that the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “provided enough motive” for exposure from the media.

The probe into meant “information and facts protection 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 investigate.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at this time suspended NLC organization secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the safety company’s “confidential” results and recommendations.
Nevhutanda asked the SSA to analyze the purpose of NLC staff members within the alleged leaking of knowledge, and Nene, in her affidavit determined specific media and reviews that she claimed associated these leaks.

In the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA told the NLC that though safeguarding point out facts was “a lawful imperative geared toward protecting the sovereignty and integrity of your condition” this only placed on properly labeled information and facts.

Although it did not say so straight, the SSA results implied the allegedly leaked information and facts didn't fall into this classification.

Substantially, the SSA built it very clear that the need to protect point out details “does not protect against any personal from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.

The SSA investigation identified that the NLC data involved in the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in mother nature, but not labeled with regard to the prescripts from the Minimum Facts Safety Benchmarks (Miss out on)”.

“The leakage of the related sensitive official NLC information and facts towards the media will not pose a menace to nationwide security,” the SSA claimed, introducing the influence from the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report discovered “no proof of the factual and incriminating mother nature versus any from the suspected NLC workforce that may be identified from the information and information interrogated”.

In addition it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities throughout the NLC and at its beneficiaries does deliver enough motive to obtain these types of uncovered while in the media”.

Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs through a session of Parliament’s trade, field and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” where info “stolen” with the NLC was despatched for the US, exactly where he claimed it absolutely was being offered to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.

He was repeating similar claims he experienced Beforehand made in Parliament, which integrated ad hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was watchful not to name possibly.

“I arrived listed here In this particular August residence final year and described to honourable associates that specifics of our beneficiaries has actually been stolen and put in a single state in the united states,” he informed MPs.

“We termed to the State Protection Company to come look into the subject mainly because we're obtaining experiences that our facts is generating money for media platforms and journalists,” he said. “There was talk, obviously from 1 resource, 1 media, that spoke A great deal about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda stated (referring to GroundUp), but failed to tell MPs which the SSA investigation were finished almost a year previously.

Proactive funding was at the heart of your looting of the lottery. It facet-stepped the conventional grant system. The NLC could itself establish a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to supervise it.

Just after Nevhutanda first told Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to analyze the meant breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Discussion board issued a statement expressing that his remarks mirrored “an especially perilous Frame of mind where by the media is being blamed to the NLC’s inherent issues”.

“As opposed to investigating why hundreds of thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has as an alternative tried to Solid question within the integrity from the journalists included and it has questioned the SSA to analyze their resources.”

Proactive tasks produced key
Security flaws discovered within the NLC grant funding program over the SSA’s investigation, surface to have been applied being an excuse by the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded initiatives from its central grants program.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding jobs was heightened to ‘top secret’ and initiatives had been faraway from the grant funding method and preserved manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Office, Executive Manager Legal so that you can safeguard [the] data,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.

“There was loads of internal dialogue, with a great deal of back and forth, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a resource, who was in the senior place with the NLC at the time, advised GroundUp. “In the long run, the decision was taken to remove every one of the proactive jobs from the method and limit entry to a handful of men and women”.

Some in that handful of folks ended up implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned within the NLC various yrs in the past, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery money. He received R4.three-million from lottery money allocated to make a library and museum advanced in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he made use of to create a house in an upmarket gated development in Pretoria. The house is among several paid out for with lottery cash that were frozen following the Asset Forfeiture Device attained a preservation order in December 2022.

The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed because the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was close to substantial-ups in the ANC Management, previous NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief working officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated inside the corruption which overcome the NLC on their watch.

Also implicated are previous board associates William Huma, who resigned soon after he was confronted with evidence of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who has because died.

Any time a new administration, including the entire board and government, took above at the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they learned a “chaotic mess” within the documentation regarding proactive funding, Significantly of which was paper-centered. Important paperwork were being lacking. Files held for safekeeping by document storage organization Metrofile had been signed out and never ever returned.

The NLC was able to recover copies of some หวย ไทยรัฐ paperwork from its Mimecast electronic mail archiving method plus the laptops in their assistants and assistance workers.

News studies
In his 1 December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has famous with grave problem attainable facts protection breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential info attained due to doing official capabilities inside the Fee by NLC staff. The activities are intended to undermine the integrity of your Commission when disrupting the efficient features [of the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational hurt towards the Commission as being the custodian of private information and facts entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

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

Nene is at the moment struggling with a disciplinary inquiry after she was unsuccessful in lawful motion to set aside findings of irregular expenditure on her watch.

The goal of her affidavit, Nene explained, was “to file the activities which transpired referring to info stability breaches on the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.

She mentioned a variety of information studies which she claimed were being the final results of these “breaches” (see at the end of this article).

Nene mentioned that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that amongst its staff, Sello Qhino, had “furnished her categorised NLC Information and persistently inspired her to deliver the data to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle with a number of dodgy lottery-funded jobs in Kuruman following attempts to lift The problem internally had been disregarded, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 report inside the Every day Dispatch concerning the misappropriation of Lottery resources, Nene mentioned which the NLC recognized and then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel within the NLC’s East London office, who was the associate and the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s 3 children.

Rungqu and Makatse imagine Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, Using the NLC shelling out R470,000 on attorneys to symbolize it, but was located not guilty and allowed to return to operate.

“The prevalent Consider these content is the fact [they entail] categorized info concerning proactive funding assignments,” Nene stated in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your relatives residence to take the warmth off her and his kids. Experiencing homelessness, he moved into an Office environment in an vacant factory belonging to a colleague.

Equally Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation approach meant to recognise the harm some people suffered with the arms on the NLC. Apologies and, in some instances, economical payment are expected.

“Some folks have been seriously influenced pretty negatively by this … This is basically unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Everyday Maverick previous year.

“I fulfilled two or three these folks. It had been just so coronary heart-wrenching that their full lives have already been turned upside down,” reported Scholtz.

Between These she satisfied were being Qhino and Makatse.

Protected System needed for whistleblowers
The SSA observed the absence at the time of a proper channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn on the media.

“Failure to possess a committed anti-corruption channel will bring about personnel presenting these types of cases beyond the NLC,” the SSA said in its findings.

“Offered the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it continues to be essential that it ensures that the NLC complies with all security prescripts Which its concentration is on making sure that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated in opposition to and by ensuring an adequate channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward perform without becoming intimidated.”

It advised that the NLC create a “Protected channel” for workers to provide information on any “untoward action” that would not avert or discourage employees from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, dependant on the Guarded Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is usually a requirement.”

Media reports Nene outlined
A 10 December 2017 report in the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor in the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The short article had features of knowledge not accessible in the general public domain, therefore raising issue on inner Information protection breaches. The allegations in the media have been independently investigated,” Nene said. “Even so, employees to blame for divulging categorised information have however for being determined”;
A 28 January 2018 short article released because of the Dally Dispatch “citing quite a few allegations through the Limpopo Mirror write-up revealed on 10 December 2017 along with a new allegation relating to a previous personnel through the identify of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for the menace brought on into the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 article inside the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC cash involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, Regardless of obtaining R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been finished. “The Lowvelder write-up contained labeled data concerning NLC plan, increasing even more problems of inside information and facts stability breaches,” Nene reported in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regard to these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, however [it] highlighted the heightened information and facts safety dangers throughout the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Most important Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp experienced confirmed in its story that it had been based on leaked NLC documents. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Entry to Information) request for details in regards to the job, she reported

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