Lottery bosses turned to Condition Security Agency to investigate leaks
Lottery bosses turned to Condition Security Agency to investigate leaks
Blog Article
Previous National Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the Condition Security Agency (SSA) in December 2018 to research the leaking of paperwork that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s business secretary at the time outlined media studies she explained ended up based on “stolen” information within an affidavit to the SSA.
The SSA did investigate. It found the knowledge was not a make any difference of condition stability and the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “enough motive” to the media to show it.
A different board and management has considering the fact that taken above the NLC and Up to now have taken measures to end corruption with the establishment.
A Point out Security Agency (SSA) investigation identified the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “delivered enough motive” for publicity by the media.
The probe into meant “info security breaches and sabotage of NLC functions” was carried out immediately after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote to your SSA in December 2018 requesting it to research.
Here is
Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by presently suspended NLC company secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the ask for, and
the security company’s “confidential” results and recommendations.
Nevhutanda questioned the SSA to investigate the job of NLC personnel within the alleged leaking of data, and Nene, in her affidavit identified precise media and reports that she claimed concerned these leaks.
During the letter outlining its findings, the SSA advised the NLC that though guarding condition data was “a lawful very important aimed at guarding the sovereignty and integrity in the state” this only applied to correctly labeled facts.
Although it did not say so directly, the SSA conclusions implied the allegedly leaked info didn't slide into this category.
Significantly, the SSA designed it obvious that the necessity to defend state facts “will not reduce any specific from blowing the whistle on corruption or irregular or criminality”.
The SSA investigation identified the NLC information and facts associated with the alleged breach was “sensitive and privileged in character, although not labeled in terms of the prescripts from the Bare minimum Facts Protection Benchmarks (Pass up)”.
“The leakage of your applicable delicate official NLC details towards the media doesn't pose a danger to nationwide safety,” the SSA said, incorporating that the effects on the breaches was reputational.
The SSA report discovered “no proof of the factual and incriminating character versus any in the suspected NLC employees that can be identified from the knowledge and data interrogated”.
Furthermore, it mentioned that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities throughout the NLC and at its beneficiaries does deliver sufficient motive to obtain these uncovered while in the media”.
Conspiracy statements
In 2020, Nevhutanda advised MPs in the course of a session of Parliament’s trade, field and Levels of competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” by which details “stolen” within the NLC was despatched to the US, exactly where he claimed it was being offered to fund a smear campaign from the NLC.
He was repeating very similar claims he experienced previously built in Parliament, which provided advert hominem attacks on GroundUp and this reporter but was careful not to name both.
“I arrived right here During this August home very last calendar year and reported to honourable associates that information regarding our beneficiaries has been stolen and put in one state in America,” he told MPs.
“We known as within the State Security Company to come back check into the subject mainly because we have been acquiring reports that our information is building income for media platforms and journalists,” he stated. “There have been chat, obviously from a person source, just one media, that spoke A lot about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda claimed (referring to GroundUp), but didn't inform MPs the SSA investigation were done Nearly a yr previously.
Proactive funding was at the center on the looting with the lottery. It facet-stepped the traditional grant system. The NLC could alone establish a job to fund and appoint a non-financial gain organisation to supervise it.
Soon after Nevhutanda very first informed Parliament in 2018 that he experienced requested the SSA to investigate the intended breach, the South African National Editors Discussion board issued a statement indicating that his remarks reflected “an extremely unsafe Mindset where by the media is currently being blamed with the NLC’s inherent difficulties”.
“Rather than investigating why hundreds of thousands can't be accounted for, the NLC has in its place tried to cast question around the integrity in the journalists concerned and has asked the SSA to investigate their resources.”
Proactive projects made magic formula
Security flaws discovered during the NLC grant funding procedure in the SSA’s investigation, show up to are employed being an excuse from the NLC to eliminate all proactive-funded tasks from its central grants system.
“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all pro-actively funding initiatives was heightened to ‘magic formula’ and initiatives had been removed from the grant funding process and maintained manually beneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Workplace, Executive Manager Legal in an effort to safeguard [the] facts,” Nene reported in her affidavit.
“There was a lot of internal dialogue, with many forwards and backwards, about how to proceed to plug the alleged leaks”, a source, who was inside a senior position at the NLC at enough time, instructed GroundUp. “Eventually, the choice was taken to get rid of every one of the proactive initiatives with the process and limit access to A few persons”.
Some in that handful of men and women have been implicated in corruption.
Maselwa, who resigned in the NLC several decades in the past, continues to be implicated in corruption involving lottery resources. He acquired R4.three-million from lottery funds allocated to build a library and museum intricate in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural Music and Arts Expo) which he utilised to make a residence in an upmarket gated enhancement in Pretoria. The home is one of many paid out for with lottery cash which were frozen once the Asset Forfeiture Device received a preservation buy in December 2022.
The politically-linked Nevhutanda, who was appointed as being 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-chief functioning officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated during the corruption which overcome the NLC on their check out.
Also implicated are former 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, that has since died.
Every time a new administration, including the total board and govt, took around within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they uncovered a “chaotic mess” during the documentation associated with proactive funding, much of which was paper-based. Key files have been missing. Data files held for safekeeping by document storage enterprise Metrofile had been signed out and in no way returned.
The NLC was in the position to Get better copies of some ผล หวย หุ้น paperwork from its Mimecast e-mail archiving method and also the laptops of their assistants and aid employees.
News reports
In his one December 2018 letter, tackled to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has noted with grave worry possible info security breaches and the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private data obtained on account of undertaking official capabilities inside the Fee by NLC personnel. The actions are intended to undermine the integrity of the Commission when disrupting the successful features [of the NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational hurt to the Commission since the custodian of non-public information and facts entrusted to it by its beneficiaries.”
His request for the SSA to investigate was supported in an affidavit by suspended NLC business secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.
Nene is at the moment experiencing a disciplinary inquiry immediately after she was unsuccessful in authorized action to put aside results of irregular expenditure on her look at.
The objective of her affidavit, Nene stated, was “to record the situations which transpired regarding data security breaches within the Nationwide 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 “delivered her classified NLC Details and persistently encouraged her to supply the knowledge to GroundUp”.
Qhino, who blew the whistle on the series of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman right after attempts to raise The difficulty internally ended up overlooked, was subsequently fired.
Referring to an 18 November 2018 post in the Daily Dispatch about the misappropriation of Lottery cash, Nene mentioned which the NLC recognized and after that suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel within the NLC’s East London office, who was the associate and the mother of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s 3 small children.
Rungqu and Makatse think Rungqu was punished mainly because Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and billed internally, with the NLC paying R470,000 on attorneys to depict it, but was observed not responsible and allowed to return to work.
“The typical factor in these posts is the fact that [they involve] categorised information and facts regarding proactive funding assignments,” Nene stated in her affidavit.
When Runqu was suspended, Makatse moved out of the spouse and children property to take the heat off her and his children. Experiencing homelessness, he moved into an Workplace within an vacant factory belonging to a buddy.
Both of those Makatse and Qhino are participating in an NLC reparation approach meant to recognise the hurt many people endured with the palms of your NLC. Apologies and, in some cases, monetary compensation are expected.
“Some individuals were truly affected very negatively by this … This is really distressing,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Everyday Maverick final calendar year.
“I fulfilled a number of these individuals. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their complete life are turned upside down,” explained Scholtz.
Among People she achieved had been Qhino and Makatse.
Safe and sound System required for whistleblowers
The SSA located the absence at some time of a proper channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to turn towards the media.
“Failure to have a devoted anti-corruption channel will lead to personnel presenting these conditions beyond the NLC,” the SSA claimed in its results.
“Provided the magnitude of corruption in state institutions, it continues to be critical that it makes sure that the NLC complies with all security prescripts Which its target is on ensuring that unlawful and irregular conduct is sufficiently mitigated against and by guaranteeing an sufficient channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward perform without having remaining intimidated.”
It advisable which the NLC establish a “Risk-free channel” for workers to deliver information on any “untoward activity” that might not reduce or discourage workers from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, determined by the Secured Disclosures Act twenty five 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 Wellbeing and Exercise Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked closely with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and operator on the Limpopo Mirror, to expose NLC corruption. “The posting had features of data not obtainable in the public domain, thereby raising concern on interior Information security breaches. The allegations in the media were being independently investigated,” Nene reported. “Having said that, workforce chargeable for divulging labeled details have yet to generally be recognized”;
A 28 January 2018 posting revealed by the Dally Dispatch “citing quite a few allegations from the Limpopo Mirror report posted on ten December 2017 along with a new allegation regarding a previous personnel via the identify of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed for that menace prompted into the organisation.”
A sixteen November 2018 report while in the Lowvelder with regards to the misappropriation of NLC cash involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has noted how, Despite obtaining R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab has never been concluded. “The Lowvelder write-up contained categorised details when it comes to NLC coverage, boosting additional problems of interior info safety breaches,” Nene claimed in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, having said that [it] highlighted the heightened information security risks throughout the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose a few dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Major Care, a hijacked NPO. Nene reported GroundUp had verified in its Tale that it was based on leaked NLC paperwork. This was despite the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Access to Facts) request for facts regarding the challenge, she mentioned