Lottery bosses turned to State Stability Company to analyze leaks

Lottery bosses turned to State Stability Company to analyze leaks

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Previous Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the State Protection Company (SSA) in December 2018 to investigate the leaking of documents that exposed lottery corruption.
The NLC’s enterprise secretary at the time detailed media stories she reported were determined by “stolen” information and facts within an affidavit for that SSA.
The SSA did examine. It identified the data was not a make a difference of point out protection and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “ample motive” for that media to show it.
A whole new board and administration has given that taken about the NLC and Up to now have taken steps to end corruption with the establishment.
A State Stability Company (SSA) investigation located the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “provided ample motive” for publicity because of the media.

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

Here is

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at the moment suspended NLC company secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety company’s “confidential” findings and suggestions.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to analyze the part of NLC personnel while in the alleged leaking of information, and Nene, in her affidavit determined certain media and reports that she claimed included these leaks.

Within the letter outlining its results, the SSA explained to the NLC that although preserving state information and facts was “a legal very important geared toward safeguarding the sovereignty and integrity in the condition” this only applied to properly categorized data.

Although it did not say so directly, the SSA findings implied the allegedly leaked information and facts did not tumble into this class.

Drastically, the SSA created it clear that the necessity to secure condition details “would not avoid any individual from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.

The SSA investigation identified the NLC information involved in the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in character, although not labeled in terms of the prescripts of your Minimal Information and facts Security Specifications (Miss out on)”.

“The leakage of your related sensitive Formal NLC information to the media doesn't pose a threat to countrywide protection,” the SSA explained, including that the effects with the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report observed “no evidence of the factual and incriminating character versus any with the suspected NLC staff that may be discovered from the information and facts interrogated”.

Furthermore, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities inside the NLC and at its beneficiaries does present enough motive to get these uncovered within the media”.

Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs all through a session of Parliament’s trade, industry and Opposition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which data “stolen” with the NLC was sent towards the US, exactly where he claimed it absolutely was remaining offered to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.

He was repeating related claims he experienced previously designed in Parliament, which incorporated advert hominem attacks on GroundUp and this reporter but was very careful not to name both.

“I arrived right here With this August home previous calendar year and reported to honourable associates that information regarding our beneficiaries has been stolen and set in a single point out in the usa,” he told MPs.

“We known as around the State Security Company to come back investigate the subject due to the fact we've been finding reviews that our information and facts is building income for media platforms and journalists,” he explained. “There has been chat, certainly from a person source, a person media, that spoke Considerably about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda mentioned (referring to GroundUp), but failed to notify MPs that the SSA investigation were done Practically a year earlier.

Proactive funding was at the center in the looting with the lottery. It facet-stepped the conventional grant process. The NLC could itself recognize a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to oversee it.

Right after Nevhutanda initial told Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to analyze the supposed breach, the South African Countrywide Editors Forum issued a press release stating that his remarks mirrored “a particularly perilous Frame of mind where the media is currently being blamed with the NLC’s inherent difficulties”.

“Rather then investigating why hundreds of thousands can't be accounted for, the NLC has as a substitute made an effort to Forged question to the integrity of your journalists associated and it has requested the SSA to investigate their sources.”

Proactive projects made secret
Stability flaws determined while in the NLC grant funding program through the SSA’s investigation, appear to have been applied as an justification from the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants process.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding assignments was heightened to ‘top secret’ and tasks ended up faraway from the grant funding method and taken care of manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information and facts Workplace, Executive Manager Legal as a way to safeguard [the] data,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.

“There was many inside discussion, with plenty of back and forth, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a supply, who was within a senior position within the NLC at enough time, informed GroundUp. “Eventually, the decision was taken to eliminate each of the proactive projects with the method and limit usage of a handful of men and women”.

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

Maselwa, who resigned with the NLC several a long time in the past, has actually been implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He received R4.3-million from lottery funds allotted to build a library and museum complicated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Songs and Arts Expo) which he utilized to construct a home in an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The assets is one of numerous compensated for with lottery cash that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Unit attained a preservation purchase in December 2022.

The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed since the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to high-ups while in the ANC Management, former NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated inside the corruption which overcome the NLC on their own watch.

Also implicated are former board associates William Huma, who resigned immediately after he was confronted with proof of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who may have because died.

Whenever a new administration, including the complete board and executive, took above on the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they identified a “chaotic mess” inside the documentation referring to proactive funding, A lot of which was paper-based. Vital paperwork were lacking. Files held for safekeeping by doc storage organization Metrofile were signed out and in no way returned.

The NLC was in a position to Get well copies of some luckyvip77 paperwork from its Mimecast e-mail archiving system as well as laptops of their assistants and support team.

News experiences
In his 1 December 2018 letter, resolved to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has noted with grave worry possible data stability breaches as well as the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential facts obtained as a result of doing official features from the Fee by NLC staff members. The things to do are meant to undermine the integrity with the Commission although disrupting the powerful functions [from the NLC] and creating insurmountable reputational hurt to your Commission because the custodian of private data entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

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

Nene is currently experiencing a disciplinary inquiry following she was unsuccessful in authorized motion to put aside findings of irregular expenditure on her look at.

The goal of her affidavit, Nene said, was “to file the gatherings which transpired relating to info safety breaches on the Nationwide Lotteries Commission”.

She detailed different news reviews which she claimed had been the outcomes of these “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this information).

Nene reported that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that amongst its personnel, Sello Qhino, experienced “presented her labeled NLC Details and persistently encouraged her to provide the knowledge to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle on a number of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman following tries to raise The difficulty internally were being dismissed, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an 18 November 2018 post inside the Everyday Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery funds, Nene claimed the NLC determined and after that suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an worker from the NLC’s East London office, who was the spouse as well as mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few youngsters.

Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, Together with the NLC paying out R470,000 on attorneys to signify it, but was found not guilty and permitted to return to operate.

“The common Think about these content articles is the fact [they include] classified facts referring to proactive funding jobs,” Nene claimed in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of the spouse and children house to go ahead and take warmth off her and his small children. Dealing with homelessness, he moved into an Workplace in an vacant manufacturing unit belonging to a friend.

Equally Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation method intended to recognise the hurt some individuals suffered within the fingers of the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, economic payment are expected.

“Some people today had been really influenced very negatively by this … This is de facto distressing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz told the Day-to-day Maverick past year.

“I met several these individuals. It was just so heart-wrenching that their entire lives are already turned the other way up,” reported Scholtz.

Among the those she met had been Qhino and Makatse.

Risk-free platform required for whistleblowers
The SSA located the absence at time of a correct channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn to the media.

“Failure to possess a devoted anti-corruption channel will bring about staff members presenting these scenarios outside of the NLC,” the SSA reported in its results.

“Presented the magnitude of corruption in state establishments, it remains very important that it makes sure that the NLC complies with all security prescripts and that its concentration is on ensuring that illegal and irregular carry out is sufficiently mitigated in opposition to and by making certain an satisfactory channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out with out getting intimidated.”

It advisable the NLC establish a “Secure channel” for workers to deliver info on any “untoward action” that might not reduce or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, based on the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, is often a prerequisite.”

Media experiences Nene mentioned
A 10 December 2017 report from the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellness and Fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored intently with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and operator in the Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The posting had factors of knowledge not out there in the general public area, thus increasing issue on interior Information and facts stability breaches. The allegations during the media ended up independently investigated,” Nene claimed. “Having said that, personnel chargeable for divulging labeled details have but to be discovered”;
A 28 January 2018 report printed via the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations through the Limpopo Mirror post released on 10 December 2017 and also a new allegation relating to a former personnel by the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed to the menace brought about towards the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 write-up from the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, Despite acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been accomplished. “The Lowvelder posting contained labeled data with regards to NLC plan, increasing even more concerns of inside details stability breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence regarding these allegations did not warrant an independent Investigation, having said that [it] highlighted the heightened info 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 reported GroundUp experienced verified in its Tale that it had been dependant on leaked NLC files. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Access to Info) ask for for aspects concerning the undertaking, she stated