Lottery bosses turned to State Stability Agency to investigate leaks

Lottery bosses turned to State Stability Agency to investigate leaks

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Previous National Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the State Safety Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of documents that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s business secretary at some time outlined media reports she reported were being determined by “stolen” details within an affidavit for your SSA.
The SSA did examine. It discovered the data was not a make a difference of condition security and which the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “enough motive” to the media to expose it.
A completely new board and management has considering that taken over the NLC and So far have taken actions to finish corruption in the institution.
A Point out Security Agency (SSA) investigation observed which the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “presented sufficient motive” for publicity via the media.

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

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by presently suspended NLC organization secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the security company’s “private” results and suggestions.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to analyze the job of NLC team from the alleged leaking of information, and Nene, in her affidavit discovered distinct media and reports that she claimed included these leaks.

During the letter outlining its results, the SSA instructed the NLC that whilst shielding point out information was “a authorized essential aimed toward defending the sovereignty and integrity on the state” this only applied to correctly classified information and facts.

Although it didn't say so right, the SSA results implied that the allegedly leaked data didn't drop into this category.

Noticeably, the SSA created it apparent that the necessity to guard condition data “would not stop any personal from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminal activity”.

The SSA investigation located the NLC facts involved in the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in nature, but not labeled with regard to the prescripts from the Minimum amount Details Protection Standards (Overlook)”.

“The leakage of your related sensitive Formal NLC information for the media isn't going to pose a danger to countrywide stability,” the SSA reported, incorporating the affect on the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report identified “no proof of the factual and incriminating character against any of your suspected NLC staff members that can be identified from the knowledge and info interrogated”.

In addition, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities within the NLC and at its beneficiaries does present enough motive to get such exposed while in the media”.

Conspiracy promises
In 2020, Nevhutanda told MPs for the duration of a session of Parliament’s trade, business and Level of competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” in which info “stolen” in the NLC was sent towards the US, in which he claimed it was currently being marketed to fund a smear campaign towards the NLC.

He was repeating comparable statements he had Earlier designed in Parliament, which provided ad hominem attacks on GroundUp which reporter but was mindful not to call either.

“I arrived below In this particular August house past year and described to honourable users that information about our beneficiaries has actually been stolen and put in a single state in the united states,” he instructed MPs.

“We called around the State Stability Agency to return take a look at the make any difference for the reason that we are receiving experiences that our data is making cash for media platforms and journalists,” he said. “There has been chat, not surprisingly from a person source, a single media, that spoke Substantially about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda claimed (referring to GroundUp), but did not explain to MPs which the SSA investigation had been completed Nearly a calendar year earlier.

Proactive funding was at the center of your looting from the lottery. It aspect-stepped the conventional grant process. The NLC could itself determine a task to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to supervise it.

Soon after Nevhutanda 1st advised Parliament in 2018 that he had requested the SSA to investigate the meant breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a statement expressing that his remarks reflected “an incredibly hazardous Angle the place the media is remaining blamed for your NLC’s inherent challenges”.

“As an alternative to investigating why hundreds of thousands can not be accounted for, the NLC has rather attempted to Forged doubt within the integrity with the journalists associated and has asked the SSA to investigate their sources.”

Proactive assignments designed secret
Security flaws identified within the NLC grant funding program in the course of the SSA’s investigation, look to are applied as an excuse by the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded assignments from its central grants program.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding initiatives was heightened to ‘key’ and projects were being removed from the grant funding procedure and taken care of manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Info Business, Executive Manager Authorized in order to safeguard [the] data,” Nene reported in her affidavit.

“There was plenty of inner dialogue, with numerous forwards and backwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a resource, who was in a senior position in the NLC at the time, informed GroundUp. “In the end, the choice was taken to eliminate the many proactive initiatives through the program and limit use of a handful of people today”.

Some in that handful of men and women had been implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned from the NLC various a long time back, has become implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He obtained R4.three-million from lottery resources allocated to develop a library and museum complex in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Audio and Arts Expo) which he made use of to build a residence within an upmarket gated progress in Pretoria. The assets is among a number of paid for with lottery funds that were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Device attained a preservation buy in December 2022.

The politically-linked Nevhutanda, who was appointed since the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near superior-ups during the ANC Management, former NLC previous Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-chief functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated from the corruption which overcome the NLC on their own look at.

Also implicated are former board customers William Huma, who resigned following he was confronted with proof of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, that has since died.

Every time a new administration, such as the whole board and government, took over on the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they learned a “chaotic mess” within the documentation associated with proactive funding, A great deal of which was paper-based. Important documents had been missing. Files held for safekeeping by doc storage enterprise Metrofile were signed out and under no circumstances returned.

The NLC was ready to Get well copies of some ผล สลาก documents from its Mimecast e-mail archiving process and the laptops in their assistants and support workers.

News reviews
In his 1 December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has noted with grave issue probable information and facts stability breaches plus the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of confidential info attained due to carrying out Formal functions during the Commission by NLC employees. The pursuits are meant to undermine the integrity on the Fee although disrupting the helpful functions [on the NLC] and creating insurmountable reputational damage to your Fee as the custodian of personal details entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

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

Nene is now 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 claimed, was “to file the activities which transpired referring to information protection breaches on the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.

She mentioned a variety of information reviews which she claimed were being the outcome of such “breaches” (see at the end of this short article).

Nene said that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that certainly one of its staff members, Sello Qhino, had “provided her categorized NLC Information and persistently inspired her to provide the information to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle over a series of dodgy lottery-funded jobs in Kuruman following attempts to lift The difficulty internally were being overlooked, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 report in the Day-to-day Dispatch concerning the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene said which the NLC determined then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an employee while in the NLC’s East London Business, who was the husband or wife and the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few little ones.

Rungqu and Makatse consider Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, Using the NLC spending R470,000 on attorneys to signify it, but was found not guilty and permitted to return to operate.

“The frequent Think about these posts is the fact [they involve] categorized facts relating to proactive funding tasks,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out with the spouse and children home to go ahead and take warmth off her and his small children. Struggling with homelessness, he moved into an Business within an empty factory belonging to a friend.

Both of those Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation approach intended to recognise the hurt lots of people experienced on the hands of the NLC. Apologies and, in some instances, money payment are envisioned.

“Some people had been actually influenced quite negatively by this … This is de facto agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day-to-day Maverick previous year.

“I met two or three these persons. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their total lives are actually turned upside down,” claimed Scholtz.

Among the Individuals she satisfied had been Qhino and Makatse.

Protected platform needed for whistleblowers
The SSA found the absence at some time of an appropriate channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn to your media.

“Failure to have a committed anti-corruption channel will lead to employees presenting these types of circumstances beyond the NLC,” the SSA mentioned in its conclusions.

“Presented the magnitude of corruption in point out institutions, it remains important that it ensures that the NLC complies with all safety prescripts Which its focus is on making sure that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated from and by making certain an adequate channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward perform without having getting intimidated.”

It suggested which the NLC establish a “Harmless channel” for employees to supply info on any “untoward exercise” that would not avert or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, depending on the Safeguarded Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is often a need.”

Media experiences Nene mentioned
A ten December 2017 report from the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Health and fitness and Conditioning Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has labored closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and operator with the Limpopo Mirror, to expose NLC corruption. “The article experienced components of data not offered in the public domain, thus elevating worry on internal Data security breaches. The allegations while in the media were being independently investigated,” Nene mentioned. “Having said that, workers chargeable for divulging classified details have nevertheless being discovered”;
A 28 January 2018 posting published from the Dally Dispatch “citing many allegations in the Limpopo Mirror post published on ten December 2017 and also a new allegation regarding a former staff because of the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed to the threat brought about for the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 write-up in the Lowvelder about the misappropriation of NLC money involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has claimed how, in spite of getting R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has not been done. “The Lowvelder post contained categorized facts in terms of NLC policy, raising more worries of inner data safety breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie evidence with regard to these allegations didn't warrant an impartial Investigation, even so [it] highlighted the heightened details security threats in the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Principal Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene claimed GroundUp had confirmed in its Tale that it was dependant on leaked NLC paperwork. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Entry to Information and facts) request for information concerning the task, she said