Lottery bosses turned to Condition Safety Agency to research leaks

Lottery bosses turned to Condition Safety Agency to research leaks

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Previous National Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda questioned the Point out Stability Company (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of files that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s business secretary at time detailed media studies she explained have been dependant on “stolen” information and facts within an affidavit for your SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It uncovered the knowledge wasn't a subject of state stability and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “enough motive” for your media to reveal it.
A fresh board and administration has given that taken around the NLC and To this point have taken actions to finish corruption at the institution.
A Condition Protection Company (SSA) investigation uncovered which the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “provided ample motive” for exposure from the media.

The probe into supposed “info security breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was carried out immediately after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote into the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to research.

Here is

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by presently suspended NLC enterprise secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security agency’s “confidential” findings and suggestions.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to analyze the function of NLC staff members during the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit determined particular media and experiences that she claimed associated these leaks.

While in the letter outlining its findings, the SSA informed the NLC that whilst defending state info was “a authorized vital aimed toward guarding the sovereignty and integrity in the state” this only placed on properly categorised information and facts.

Although it didn't say so immediately, the SSA conclusions implied the allegedly leaked details did not fall into this classification.

Significantly, the SSA manufactured it distinct that the necessity to shield point out information and facts “does not avert any particular person from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.

The SSA investigation identified that the NLC information involved in the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in mother nature, but not labeled in terms of the prescripts of the Minimum Data Security Criteria (Pass up)”.

“The leakage of your relevant delicate Formal NLC data on the media won't pose a risk to national stability,” the SSA claimed, including which the impression in the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report discovered “no proof of the factual and incriminating character against any on the suspected NLC workers which could be recognized from the knowledge and data interrogated”.

What's more, it stated that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities inside the NLC and at its beneficiaries does give enough motive to obtain this kind of exposed inside the media”.

Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs through a session of Parliament’s trade, marketplace and competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” in which information “stolen” within the NLC was despatched for the US, exactly where he claimed it absolutely was currently being sold to fund a smear marketing campaign against the NLC.

He was repeating identical claims he experienced previously manufactured in Parliament, which included advertisement hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was mindful not to name possibly.

“I arrived right here With this August house final yr and described to honourable users that specifics of our beneficiaries continues to be stolen and put in one point out in the usa,” he explained to MPs.

“We termed over the Point out Safety Agency to return check into the issue since we are having studies that our info is building income for media platforms and journalists,” he stated. “There was speak, certainly from a single supply, one media, that spoke Considerably about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but failed to inform MPs the SSA investigation had been accomplished Just about a calendar year before.

Proactive funding was at the guts of your looting of your lottery. It facet-stepped the traditional grant course of action. The NLC could by itself discover a task to fund and appoint a non-earnings organisation to oversee it.

After Nevhutanda to start with instructed Parliament in 2018 that he had questioned the SSA to investigate the meant breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a statement expressing that his remarks reflected “a very harmful Angle in which the media is remaining blamed for the NLC’s inherent challenges”.

“Rather then investigating why hundreds of thousands can't be accounted for, the NLC has instead tried to cast doubt about the integrity of the journalists concerned and it has requested the SSA to analyze their sources.”

Proactive projects designed secret
Security flaws discovered within the NLC grant funding technique in the SSA’s investigation, surface to have been utilised as an excuse through the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded initiatives from its central grants procedure.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding tasks was heightened to ‘secret’ and tasks ended up removed from the grant funding process and preserved manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information and facts Business, Government Supervisor Legal as a way to safeguard [the] facts,” Nene stated in her affidavit.

“There was plenty of internal dialogue, with numerous backwards and forwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was in a senior place at the NLC at some time, informed GroundUp. “In the long run, the choice was taken to remove every one of the proactive projects with the procedure and Restrict access to a handful of folks”.

Some in that handful of folks were implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned from the NLC several decades in the past, has long been implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He received R4.three-million from lottery funds allotted to make a library and museum intricate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural New music and Arts Expo) which he utilised to create a household within an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The assets is one of a number of paid for with lottery cash that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Unit attained a preservation buy in December 2022.

The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed given that the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near higher-ups during the ANC leadership, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main working officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated during the corruption which overwhelmed the NLC on their enjoy.

Also implicated are previous board members William Huma, who resigned right after he was confronted with proof of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who's got since died.

Whenever a new administration, including the whole board and executive, took more than on the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they identified a “chaotic mess” inside the documentation referring to proactive funding, Significantly of which was paper-primarily based. Key files have been lacking. Information held for safekeeping by doc storage firm Metrofile had been signed out and under no circumstances returned.

The NLC was capable to recover copies of some ผล หวย หุ้น documents from its Mimecast electronic mail archiving technique along with the laptops of their assistants and guidance personnel.

Information studies
In his one December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has pointed out with grave problem probable data stability breaches as well as the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information and facts obtained because of undertaking Formal capabilities in the Commission by NLC workers. The pursuits are intended to undermine the integrity on the Commission whilst disrupting the successful functions [of the NLC] and causing insurmountable reputational hurt to your Commission as the custodian of private data entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

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

Nene is currently experiencing a disciplinary inquiry right after she was unsuccessful in lawful action to set aside results of irregular expenditure on her check out.

The purpose of her affidavit, Nene explained, was “to history the occasions which transpired associated with information and facts stability breaches in the National Lotteries Commission”.

She outlined different news reports which she claimed were 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 staff members, Sello Qhino, had “provided her labeled NLC Details and persistently inspired her to supply the data to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle on the number of dodgy lottery-funded projects in Kuruman immediately after attempts to boost The difficulty internally were dismissed, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 article inside the Each day Dispatch concerning the misappropriation of Lottery money, Nene explained the NLC determined after which you can suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an staff during the NLC’s East London office, who was the partner and the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s 3 kids.

Rungqu and Makatse think Rungqu was punished because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, With all the NLC investing R470,000 on attorneys to signify it, but was uncovered not guilty and allowed to return to operate.

“The common Consider these articles is always that [they contain] classified details regarding proactive funding jobs,” Nene stated in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out in the household household to go ahead and take heat off her and his young children. Going through homelessness, he moved into an Business office in an vacant manufacturing unit belonging to a buddy.

The two Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation system intended to recognise the hurt some people endured at the palms from the NLC. Apologies and, occasionally, monetary payment are envisioned.

“Some men and women were being actually influenced pretty negatively by this … This is basically agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Day by day Maverick final 12 months.

“I met a handful of these people. It absolutely was just so heart-wrenching that their total life have already been turned the wrong way up,” reported Scholtz.

Among the those she achieved have been Qhino and Makatse.

Risk-free platform necessary for whistleblowers
The SSA identified the absence at the time of a suitable channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn on the media.

“Failure to possess a devoted anti-corruption channel will bring about personnel presenting this sort of instances outside of the NLC,” the SSA explained in its findings.

“Supplied the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it stays important that it makes certain that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts Which its focus is on making certain that illegal and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated from and by making certain an enough channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out devoid of remaining intimidated.”

It proposed the NLC set up a “Secure channel” for workers to supply info on any “untoward action” that would not prevent or discourage staff members from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, based on the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five of 2000, can be a requirement.”

Media stories Nene stated
A 10 December 2017 report within the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and Conditioning Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor of your Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The posting had things of data not obtainable in the public domain, thereby elevating problem on inner Details protection breaches. The allegations from the media ended up independently investigated,” Nene explained. “On the other hand, personnel answerable for divulging classified facts have but to be determined”;
A 28 January 2018 posting printed via the Dally Dispatch “citing several allegations through the Limpopo Mirror write-up released on ten December 2017 and a new allegation regarding a former worker with the title of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for your threat brought on towards the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 article while in the Lowvelder concerning the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has reported how, Despite acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been done. “The Lowvelder write-up contained categorized info when it comes to NLC coverage, raising even more issues of inside information protection breaches,” Nene said in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence regarding these allegations didn't warrant an independent Investigation, having said that [it] highlighted the heightened details protection risks within the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Most important Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp experienced confirmed in its Tale that it had been based upon leaked NLC paperwork. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Advertising of Entry to Info) ask for for specifics in regards to the venture, she reported