Previous Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the State Security Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of paperwork that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s firm secretary at some time outlined media stories she explained have been determined by “stolen” information in an affidavit for that SSA.
The SSA did examine. It located the data was not a issue of state stability and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” to the media to reveal it.
A whole new board and management has because taken around the NLC and To this point have taken steps to end corruption with the establishment.
A Point out Security Agency (SSA) investigation found that the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered sufficient motive” for exposure via the media.
The probe into supposed “info safety breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was undertaken right after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote into the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to analyze.
Here is
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC organization secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security company’s “confidential” findings and recommendations.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to analyze the role of NLC employees within the alleged leaking of information, and Nene, in her affidavit determined distinct media and reviews that she claimed involved these leaks.
In the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA explained to the NLC that when safeguarding point out information was “a legal crucial aimed toward guarding the sovereignty and integrity with the condition” this only placed on correctly categorised data.
Even though it didn't say so instantly, the SSA results implied which the allegedly leaked information and facts didn't tumble into this category.
Significantly, the SSA designed it distinct that the need to safeguard condition information and facts “would not stop any personal from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.
The SSA investigation observed that the NLC facts involved in the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in mother nature, although not classified in terms of the prescripts of your Minimum amount Facts Security Specifications (MISS)”.
“The leakage with the appropriate sensitive official NLC data for the media would not pose a menace to countrywide safety,” the SSA said, adding that the affect of the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report identified “no evidence of the factual and incriminating nature against any of the suspected NLC staff that might be recognized from the knowledge and data interrogated”.
Furthermore, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities inside the NLC and at its beneficiaries does supply enough motive to have this sort of uncovered from the media”.
Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda told MPs all through a session of Parliament’s trade, marketplace and Competitiveness portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” during which data “stolen” in the NLC was sent to your US, where by he claimed it absolutely was getting offered to fund a smear campaign versus the NLC.
He was repeating very similar claims he experienced previously designed in Parliament, which integrated advertisement hominem attacks on GroundUp and this reporter but was very careful not to name either.
“I arrived here In this particular August house final 12 months and described to honourable users that information about our beneficiaries has become stolen and place in a single condition in the united states,” he advised MPs.
“We named to the Condition Safety Company to come back investigate the subject mainly because we have been having experiences that our info is creating dollars for media platforms and journalists,” he claimed. “There's been talk, obviously from a person supply, a single media, that spoke A lot about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but did not inform MPs which the SSA investigation were done Just about a year previously.
Proactive funding was at the guts from the looting on the lottery. It aspect-stepped the traditional grant procedure. The NLC could itself establish a project to fund and appoint a non-revenue organisation to oversee it.
Immediately after Nevhutanda initially explained to Parliament in 2018 that he experienced questioned the SSA to research the meant breach, the South African Nationwide Editors Discussion board issued a statement indicating that his remarks reflected “an incredibly harmful Angle in which the media is staying blamed for the NLC’s inherent troubles”.
“Rather than investigating why hundreds of thousands can't be accounted for, the NLC has alternatively made an effort to Solid doubt about the integrity on the journalists included and has asked the SSA to analyze their resources.”
Proactive assignments manufactured mystery
Safety flaws discovered during the NLC grant funding process in the course of the SSA’s investigation, seem to have been applied as an excuse via the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded jobs from its central grants program.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding projects was heightened to ‘mystery’ and jobs had been removed from the grant funding technique and managed manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Info Business office, Government Manager Legal as a way to safeguard [the] data,” Nene explained in her affidavit.
“There was a great deal of inner discussion, with many forwards and backwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was inside of a senior situation on the NLC at the time, instructed GroundUp. “Ultimately, the choice was taken to remove the many proactive tasks within the program and Restrict usage of a handful of men and women”.
Some in that handful of folks were implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned through the NLC quite a few many years ago, has become implicated in corruption involving lottery funds. He obtained R4.3-million from lottery cash allocated to construct a library and museum elaborate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he utilised to construct a household in an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The residence is among a number of compensated for with lottery resources which were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Unit attained a preservation order in December 2022.
The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed as the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to significant-ups during the ANC Management, 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 observe.
Also implicated are former board members William Huma, who resigned right after he was confronted with proof of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, that has due to the fact died.
Each time a new administration, such as the complete board and govt, took over within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found a “chaotic mess” in the documentation relating to proactive funding, Substantially of which was paper-based. Critical files had been missing. Documents held for safekeeping by doc storage organization Metrofile had been signed out and in no way returned.
The NLC was in the position to Get well copies of some หวย หุ้น ช่อง 9 วัน นี้ files from its Mimecast email archiving program as well as laptops in their assistants and assist staff members.
Information stories
In his 1 December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has pointed out with grave issue doable data security breaches plus the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential information and facts acquired on account of undertaking Formal functions while in the Fee by NLC workforce. The routines are meant to undermine the integrity from the Commission though disrupting the successful features [of your NLC] and causing insurmountable reputational harm towards the Commission as the custodian of personal info entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His ask for with the SSA to research was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC business secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is presently struggling with a disciplinary inquiry immediately after she was unsuccessful in authorized motion to set aside results of irregular expenditure on her view.
The goal of her affidavit, Nene stated, was “to report the events which transpired associated with information and facts security breaches with the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.
She mentioned different information reports which she claimed had been the outcome of those “breaches” (see at the end of this information).
Nene reported that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that one of its workforce, Sello Qhino, experienced “supplied her categorised NLC Facts and persistently encouraged her to deliver the knowledge to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle with a series of dodgy lottery-funded jobs in Kuruman right after tries to raise The problem internally were being ignored, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an 18 November 2018 article while in the Day by day Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery resources, Nene said that the NLC determined and after that suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an employee within the NLC’s East London Business office, who was the lover as well as mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few small children.
Rungqu and Makatse consider Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, Using the NLC spending R470,000 on legal professionals to depict it, but was discovered not responsible and allowed to return to work.
“The popular Consider these posts is the fact [they include] categorized facts relating to proactive funding assignments,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out from the household home to take the warmth off her and his kids. Going through homelessness, he moved into an Business office in an empty manufacturing unit belonging to an acquaintance.
Both equally Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation method meant to recognise the damage a number of people endured at the palms from the NLC. Apologies and, occasionally, fiscal payment are expected.
“Some persons had been seriously affected quite negatively by this … This is actually unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Daily Maverick previous 12 months.
“I fulfilled two or three these individuals. It was just so coronary heart-wrenching that their full life are turned the other way up,” explained Scholtz.
Amid Individuals she met were being Qhino and Makatse.
Harmless platform required for whistleblowers
The SSA found the absence at enough time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show on the media.
“Failure to possess a dedicated anti-corruption channel will bring about personnel presenting this kind of conditions outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its conclusions.
“Offered the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it stays important that it makes certain that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts Which its aim is on ensuring that unlawful and irregular perform is sufficiently mitigated from and by guaranteeing an ample channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out without having becoming intimidated.”
It suggested which the NLC create a “Risk-free channel” for employees to offer information on any “untoward exercise” that will not prevent or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, based on the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, can be a requirement.”
Media studies Nene mentioned
A 10 December 2017 report inside the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and fitness and Health and fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and owner in the Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The report had factors of information not obtainable in the public area, therefore elevating concern on interior Facts protection breaches. The allegations inside the media were independently investigated,” Nene reported. “On the other hand, personnel liable for divulging categorised details have yet to get identified”;
A 28 January 2018 report posted through the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations in the Limpopo Mirror short article posted on ten December 2017 along with a new allegation associated with a former worker through the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for the danger brought on for the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 posting during the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has claimed how, Regardless of acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been completed. “The Lowvelder posting contained categorized info concerning NLC policy, increasing further problems of internal data protection breaches,” Nene said in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence with regard to these allegations did not warrant an independent Investigation, even so [it] highlighted the heightened facts stability threats throughout the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a few dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Principal Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene mentioned GroundUp had verified in its Tale that it had been determined by leaked NLC paperwork. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Entry to Info) ask for for information regarding the project, she claimed