Lottery bosses turned to State Protection Company to analyze leaks

Lottery bosses turned to State Protection Company to analyze leaks

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Previous Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the Condition Stability Company (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of paperwork that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s enterprise secretary at some time listed media reviews she mentioned had been determined by “stolen” data in an affidavit with the SSA.
The SSA did examine. It identified the information wasn't a make any difference of condition stability and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “enough motive” for the media to show it.
A whole new board and administration has since taken around the NLC and To date have taken measures to end corruption within the institution.
A State Stability Company (SSA) investigation uncovered the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered sufficient motive” for publicity with the media.

The probe into supposed “information protection breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was undertaken soon after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote to your SSA in December 2018 requesting it to analyze.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at the moment suspended NLC firm secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety agency’s “private” results and recommendations.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to investigate the job of NLC personnel within the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit recognized precise media and reviews that she claimed included these leaks.

In the letter outlining its results, the SSA instructed the NLC that while safeguarding condition information and facts was “a legal crucial aimed toward safeguarding the sovereignty and integrity with the condition” this only applied to appropriately classified info.

Even though it didn't say so right, the SSA results implied that the allegedly leaked information and facts didn't fall into this classification.

Noticeably, the SSA built it obvious that the need to guard state information and facts “isn't going to stop any unique from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.

The SSA investigation uncovered that the NLC data linked to the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in nature, but not categorized concerning the prescripts of the Minimal Data Protection Criteria (Miss out on)”.

“The leakage with the applicable delicate official NLC info towards the media doesn't pose a danger to nationwide safety,” the SSA stated, introducing the impact with the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report located “no proof of a factual and incriminating mother nature towards any of your suspected NLC staff that could be recognized from the knowledge and details interrogated”.

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

Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda told MPs throughout a session of Parliament’s trade, market and Competitiveness portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which data “stolen” from your NLC was despatched to your US, the place he claimed it was remaining offered to fund a smear marketing campaign in opposition to the NLC.

He was repeating comparable statements he experienced Formerly designed in Parliament, which integrated advertisement hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was cautious not to name both.

“I arrived in this article On this August household past year and noted to honourable associates that information regarding our beneficiaries has actually been stolen and set in a single condition in America,” he informed MPs.

“We known as around the Point out Protection Agency to come take a look at the subject mainly because we're getting stories that our data is generating income for media platforms and journalists,” he stated. “There's been talk, of course from one supply, one particular media, that spoke Significantly about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda explained (referring to GroundUp), but failed to tell MPs which the SSA investigation had been done Nearly a calendar year before.

Proactive funding was at the heart of your looting of the lottery. It side-stepped the traditional grant system. The NLC could alone recognize a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to supervise it.

Soon after Nevhutanda 1st advised Parliament in 2018 that he had requested the SSA to investigate the intended breach, the South African National Editors Forum issued a press release declaring that his remarks mirrored “a particularly perilous Frame of mind where by 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 with the journalists associated and it has requested the SSA to investigate their resources.”

Proactive jobs designed top secret
Protection flaws recognized within the NLC grant funding system during the SSA’s investigation, show up to are already utilized being an justification with the NLC to remove all proactive-funded assignments from its central grants system.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding jobs was heightened to ‘magic formula’ and initiatives were removed from the grant funding technique and preserved manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Information Place of work, Government Manager Legal in an effort 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 inside a senior posture for the NLC at time, told GroundUp. “Eventually, the decision was taken to eliminate each of the proactive jobs through the system and limit use of A few folks”.

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 cash. He gained R4.three-million from lottery cash allocated to create a library and museum advanced in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Tunes and Arts Expo) which he applied to develop a household in an upmarket gated advancement in Pretoria. The property is among many paid for with lottery resources that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Unit attained a preservation buy in December 2022.

The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed as being the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to superior-ups while in the ANC Management, former NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated within the corruption which overcome the NLC on their own check out.

Also implicated are former board members William Huma, who resigned soon after he was confronted with evidence of how he had profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who's got considering the fact that died.

When a new administration, such as the full board and govt, took about within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found out a “chaotic mess” during the documentation concerning proactive funding, Substantially of which was paper-based mostly. Important files were being lacking. Data files held for safekeeping by doc storage corporation Metrofile were signed out and under no circumstances returned.

The NLC was ready to Get well copies of some luckyvip77 paperwork from its Mimecast e mail archiving procedure and also the laptops of their assistants and help staff members.

Information stories
In his 1 December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has mentioned with grave concern feasible info security breaches and also the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information and facts received due to executing Formal features within the Fee by NLC staff. The activities are intended to undermine the integrity of the Commission though disrupting the successful capabilities [from the NLC] and resulting in insurmountable reputational hurt for the Commission as being the custodian of private info entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

His request to the SSA to research was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC firm secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.

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

The purpose of her affidavit, Nene reported, was “to report the functions which transpired associated with details stability breaches for the National Lotteries Fee”.

She detailed various news experiences which she claimed have been the results of those “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this informative article).

Nene claimed that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that certainly one of its staff members, Sello Qhino, experienced “supplied her categorized NLC Facts and persistently inspired her to deliver the data to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle with a number of dodgy lottery-funded initiatives in Kuruman just after tries to boost The problem internally had been ignored, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 post inside the Every day Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery money, Nene explained that the NLC identified after which you can suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an worker during the NLC’s East London Workplace, who was the husband or wife and the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few small children.

Rungqu and Makatse believe that Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, While using the NLC paying out R470,000 on lawyers to represent it, but was uncovered not responsible and allowed to return to operate.

“The widespread factor in these content articles is the fact [they entail] categorised data relating to proactive funding tasks,” Nene said in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of your relatives property to go ahead and take heat off her and his children. Experiencing homelessness, he moved into an Place of work within an vacant factory belonging to an acquaintance.

Each Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation system intended to recognise the harm a lot of people suffered on the fingers on the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, money payment are predicted.

“Some people today were being definitely afflicted pretty negatively by this … This is admittedly distressing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day-to-day Maverick final year.

“I fulfilled a number of these people. It absolutely was just so heart-wrenching that their full lives are actually turned the wrong way up,” reported Scholtz.

Amid those she satisfied were being Qhino and Makatse.

Secure platform wanted for whistleblowers
The SSA discovered the absence at time of a suitable channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show into the media.

“Failure to possess a focused anti-corruption channel will result in staff presenting these kinds of scenarios beyond the NLC,” the SSA explained in its results.

“Provided the magnitude of corruption in state establishments, it stays critical that it ensures that the NLC complies with all security prescripts Which its target is on ensuring that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated towards and by making sure an satisfactory channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward perform with no being intimidated.”

It encouraged that the NLC set up a “Harmless channel” for employees to supply information on any “untoward action” that may not stop or discourage personnel from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, based on the Guarded Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is actually a necessity.”

Media studies Nene shown
A 10 December 2017 report inside the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellness and Physical fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and owner of the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The report had things of information not available in the public area, thereby increasing concern on inside Information protection breaches. The allegations in the media have been independently investigated,” Nene reported. “Nonetheless, workforce accountable for divulging categorized facts have yet to become recognized”;
A 28 January 2018 write-up revealed with the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations with the Limpopo Mirror short article released on 10 December 2017 along with a new allegation relating to a previous worker from the identify of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for the menace triggered to the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 article while in the Lowvelder regarding the misappropriation of NLC resources involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, Regardless of acquiring R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has never been accomplished. “The Lowvelder short article contained classified info with regard to NLC plan, boosting further issues of internal details safety breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an impartial Investigation, nonetheless [it] highlighted the heightened details security threats in the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Principal Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene reported GroundUp had verified in its story that it had been according to leaked NLC files. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Usage of Details) ask for for details with regards to the project, she explained