Lottery bosses turned to Condition Safety Agency to research leaks

Lottery bosses turned to Condition Safety Agency to research leaks

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Former Nationwide Lotteries Commission (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda requested the State Stability Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of paperwork that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s enterprise secretary at enough time outlined media experiences she explained were dependant on “stolen” data within an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It located the data wasn't a matter of state safety and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “ample motive” for your media to expose it.
A whole new board and management has due to the fact taken about the NLC and To date have taken actions to end corruption within the establishment.
A State Stability Company (SSA) investigation identified which the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered sufficient motive” for publicity with the media.

The probe into meant “details stability breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was undertaken after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote to the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to research.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at present suspended NLC company secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety agency’s “confidential” results and proposals.
Nevhutanda asked the SSA to investigate the part of NLC team during the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit identified distinct media and reviews that she claimed concerned these leaks.

While in the letter outlining its results, the SSA instructed the NLC that although safeguarding state info was “a legal vital directed at safeguarding the sovereignty and integrity with the state” this only placed on appropriately categorized information.

Although it didn't say so straight, the SSA results implied that the allegedly leaked facts didn't fall into this group.

Noticeably, the SSA made it very clear that the necessity to secure condition information and facts “doesn't protect against any particular person from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or illegal activity”.

The SSA investigation observed that the NLC data involved in the alleged breach was “delicate and privileged in nature, but not classified regarding the prescripts from the Minimal Data Stability Specifications (Skip)”.

“The leakage of the suitable delicate Formal NLC info on the media would not pose a threat to national security,” the SSA mentioned, including the affect with the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report observed “no proof of a factual and incriminating nature against any of your suspected NLC workforce that could be discovered from the knowledge and information interrogated”.

In addition, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities in the NLC and at its beneficiaries does deliver sufficient motive to get this kind of uncovered while in the media”.

Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda instructed MPs for the duration of a session of Parliament’s trade, industry and Level of competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” through which information “stolen” from your NLC was despatched to the US, in which he claimed it had been remaining sold to fund a smear campaign towards the NLC.

He was repeating equivalent statements he had Formerly made in Parliament, which provided ad hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was thorough not to name either.

“I arrived in this article During this August dwelling very last yr and noted to honourable users that information regarding our beneficiaries has become stolen and put in a single state in the united states,” he told MPs.

“We termed within the Point out Security Agency to return consider the subject simply because we have been having reviews that our facts is building cash for media platforms and journalists,” he explained. “There was converse, of course from 1 source, 1 media, that spoke A lot about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda stated (referring to GroundUp), but failed to tell MPs which the SSA investigation had been finished Nearly a calendar year previously.

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

Right after Nevhutanda very first informed Parliament in 2018 that he experienced asked the SSA to investigate the supposed breach, the South African Nationwide Editors Discussion board issued an announcement saying that his remarks mirrored “an especially harmful Mind-set where by the media is becoming blamed for your NLC’s inherent difficulties”.

“As an alternative to investigating why thousands and thousands cannot be accounted for, the NLC has instead attempted to cast question about the integrity with the journalists associated and it has asked the SSA to investigate their resources.”

Proactive tasks built solution
Security flaws discovered within the NLC grant funding process throughout the SSA’s investigation, show up to are actually employed being an excuse with the NLC to get rid of all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants program.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding initiatives was heightened to ‘solution’ and assignments were faraway from the grant funding program and maintained manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Info Business, Government Supervisor Legal in an effort to safeguard [the] details,” Nene reported in her affidavit.

“There was plenty of inside dialogue, with lots of back and forth, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was within a senior situation for the NLC at some time, explained to GroundUp. “Eventually, the choice was taken to get rid of every one of the proactive assignments through the technique and limit usage of A few folks”.

Some in that handful of people were being implicated in corruption.

Maselwa, who resigned with the NLC many many years in the past, is implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He obtained R4.three-million from lottery funds allocated to make a library and museum sophisticated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Tunes and Arts Expo) which he used to create a household within an upmarket gated development in Pretoria. The home is one of many paid out for with lottery cash that were frozen following the Asset Forfeiture Unit obtained a preservation order in December 2022.

The politically-related Nevhutanda, who was appointed as the NLC board chairperson by previous President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was near to large-ups inside the ANC leadership, previous NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main running officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated inside the corruption which confused the NLC on their watch.

Also implicated are previous board members William Huma, who resigned just after he was confronted with evidence of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who has due to the fact died.

When a new administration, including the full board and executive, took in excess of within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they found a “chaotic mess” while in the documentation concerning proactive funding, A lot of which was paper-primarily based. Essential paperwork have been missing. Files held for safekeeping by doc storage enterprise Metrofile were signed out and under no circumstances returned.

The NLC was in the position to Get well copies of some หวย ออก documents from its Mimecast email archiving program plus the laptops in their assistants and guidance staff.

News stories
In his 1 December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has pointed out with grave concern attainable information and facts security breaches along with the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private information and facts attained as a result of carrying out official functions in the Fee by NLC employees. The activities are meant to undermine the integrity with the Commission although disrupting the successful functions [of your NLC] and producing insurmountable reputational damage towards the Fee since the custodian of private data entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”

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

Nene is at the moment facing a disciplinary inquiry soon after she was unsuccessful in lawful motion to set aside findings of irregular expenditure on her look at.

The goal of her affidavit, Nene said, was “to file the gatherings which transpired concerning information security breaches in the National Lotteries Fee”.

She mentioned various information stories which she claimed ended up the final results of those “breaches” (see at the end of this short article).

Nene said that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that amongst its staff members, Sello Qhino, had “delivered her categorized NLC Information and persistently encouraged her to deliver the information to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle over a series of dodgy lottery-funded assignments in Kuruman after makes an attempt to boost The difficulty internally were dismissed, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an 18 November 2018 short article in the Every day Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene claimed which the NLC determined and afterwards suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel while in the NLC’s East London Office environment, who was the associate along with the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few little ones.

Rungqu and Makatse imagine Rungqu was punished for the reason that Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, with the NLC shelling out R470,000 on attorneys to characterize it, but was uncovered not guilty and permitted to return to operate.

“The prevalent Think about these article content is that [they entail] categorised data referring to proactive funding assignments,” Nene said in her affidavit.

When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out with the relatives household to go ahead and take warmth off her and his little ones. Going through homelessness, he moved into an Place of work within an empty manufacturing facility belonging to a colleague.

The two Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation system intended to recognise the damage many people endured on the fingers of your NLC. Apologies and, in some instances, economic compensation are predicted.

“Some folks ended up seriously influenced really negatively by this … This is de facto agonizing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz informed the Daily Maverick past 12 months.

“I satisfied a few these people today. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their full lives are actually turned the wrong way up,” mentioned Scholtz.

Among the These she fulfilled were being Qhino and Makatse.

Risk-free System necessary for whistleblowers
The SSA located the absence at the time of a proper channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn for the media.

“Failure to possess a focused anti-corruption channel will bring about employees presenting these kinds of scenarios outside of the NLC,” the SSA mentioned in its conclusions.

“Offered the magnitude of corruption in point out establishments, it remains vital that it ensures that the NLC complies with all stability prescripts and that its emphasis is on ensuring that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated in opposition to and by making sure an enough channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward conduct without the need of currently being intimidated.”

It advised the NLC create a “safe channel” for employees to supply info on any “untoward exercise” that would not avert or discourage workforce from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers plan, determined by the Secured Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, can be a necessity.”

Media reviews Nene outlined
A ten December 2017 report while in the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellbeing and Exercise Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked intently with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor from the Limpopo Mirror, to show NLC corruption. “The write-up experienced factors of data not obtainable in the general public domain, thereby increasing concern on inner Information and facts security breaches. The allegations while in the media were being independently investigated,” Nene stated. “On the other hand, workforce liable for divulging categorized info have however to become identified”;
A 28 January 2018 post published via the Dally Dispatch “citing various allegations with the Limpopo Mirror report printed on ten December 2017 plus a new allegation relating to a previous staff with the identify of Mzukisi Makatse. He was charged and summarily dismissed for that threat induced into the organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 report during the Lowvelder with regards to the misappropriation of NLC resources involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has reported how, in spite of getting R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has never been finished. “The Lowvelder write-up contained labeled data with regard to NLC coverage, elevating more considerations of internal information protection breaches,” Nene mentioned in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof regarding these allegations didn't warrant an impartial Investigation, however [it] highlighted the heightened information and facts safety threats inside the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a couple of dodgy R27.five-million grant to Denzhe Main Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene said GroundUp had confirmed in its story that it had been based on leaked NLC documents. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Promotion of Entry to Facts) ask for for aspects regarding the task, she explained

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