Lottery bosses turned to Point out Safety Agency to research leaks

Lottery bosses turned to Point out Safety Agency to research leaks

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Previous National Lotteries Fee (NLC) board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda asked the Condition Protection Company (SSA) in December 2018 to analyze the leaking of files that uncovered lottery corruption.
The NLC’s organization secretary at enough time stated media reports she said were determined by “stolen” information and facts within an affidavit for the SSA.
The SSA did look into. It uncovered the knowledge was not a matter of point out safety and that the “prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities” gave “sufficient motive” for your media to show it.
A different board and management has since taken about the NLC and So far have taken actions to finish corruption on the establishment.
A Point out Security Agency (SSA) investigation located which the “prevalence” of alleged corruption and irregularities involving the NLC and its beneficiaries “supplied sufficient motive” for exposure with the media.

The probe into intended “facts protection breaches and sabotage of NLC operations” was carried out right after then-NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda wrote into the SSA in December 2018 requesting it to research.

Here's

Nevhutanda’s letter,
an affidavit by at this time suspended NLC business secretary Nompumelelo Nene supporting the request, and
the safety agency’s “private” conclusions and proposals.
Nevhutanda requested the SSA to investigate the job of NLC staff members inside the alleged leaking of information, and Nene, in her affidavit identified unique media and reports that she claimed associated these leaks.

In the letter outlining its conclusions, the SSA explained to the NLC that though safeguarding point out info was “a authorized very important geared toward safeguarding the sovereignty and integrity with the condition” this only placed on properly categorized details.

Although it did not say so directly, the SSA conclusions implied the allegedly leaked details did not tumble into this group.

Drastically, the SSA created it distinct that the necessity to defend state facts “will not prevent any particular person 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 “sensitive and privileged in nature, but not labeled when it comes to the prescripts on the Minimum amount Information Security Specifications (Overlook)”.

“The leakage on the appropriate sensitive official NLC info towards the media does not pose a danger to nationwide safety,” the SSA said, introducing the influence of the breaches was reputational.

The SSA report observed “no evidence of the factual and incriminating nature from any from the suspected NLC workforce that can be discovered from the information and facts interrogated”.

In addition, it said that “the prevalence of alleged corruption and irregularities throughout the NLC and at its beneficiaries does offer sufficient motive to own these types of uncovered in the media”.

Conspiracy claims
In 2020, Nevhutanda told MPs in the course of a session of Parliament’s trade, sector and Levels of competition portfolio committee that there was “a conspiracy” wherein information and facts “stolen” with the NLC was sent towards the US, where he claimed it absolutely was currently being sold to fund a smear marketing campaign towards the NLC.

He was repeating identical statements he experienced previously designed in Parliament, which integrated advertisement hominem assaults on GroundUp which reporter but was mindful not to call possibly.

“I came listed here During this August home previous 12 months and claimed to honourable members that details about our beneficiaries has become stolen and place in one state in America,” he told MPs.

“We known as around the State Stability Agency to come consider the matter because we have been acquiring reports that our information and facts is making cash for media platforms and journalists,” he reported. “There's been talk, naturally from 1 supply, a person media, that spoke Significantly about proactive-funding,” Nevhutanda reported (referring to GroundUp), but failed to inform MPs the SSA investigation had been concluded Pretty much a year earlier.

Proactive funding was at the guts of the looting from the lottery. It side-stepped the traditional grant course of action. The NLC could alone identify a undertaking to fund and appoint a non-income organisation to supervise it.

Immediately after Nevhutanda first told Parliament in 2018 that he experienced questioned the SSA to research the intended breach, the South African National Editors Forum issued a statement declaring that his remarks mirrored “an incredibly harmful attitude where by the media is getting blamed for your NLC’s inherent difficulties”.

“In lieu of investigating why tens of millions can't be accounted for, the NLC has as an alternative tried to cast question over the integrity in the journalists included and has requested the SSA to investigate their resources.”

Proactive assignments created top secret
Protection flaws identified inside the NLC grant funding technique in the SSA’s investigation, appear to have already been applied as an excuse from the NLC to remove all proactive-funded jobs from its central grants procedure.

“In or about 21 December 2019, the classification of all Professional-actively funding tasks was heightened to ‘magic formula’ and jobs ended up removed from the grant funding procedure and preserved manually underneath the custody of [Tsietsi Maselwa] the NLC’s [then] Deputy Facts Workplace, Government Supervisor Legal so that you can safeguard [the] details,” Nene reported in her affidavit.

“There was plenty of inside dialogue, with lots of backwards and forwards, about what to do to plug the alleged leaks”, a supply, who was in a very senior posture at the NLC at the time, told GroundUp. “In the end, the decision was taken to eliminate all the proactive jobs from the system and Restrict entry to a handful of people today”.

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 cash. He obtained R4.three-million from lottery resources allocated to develop a library and museum sophisticated in Kuruman (see Taung Cultural New music and Arts Expo) which he utilized to develop a house in an upmarket gated growth in Pretoria. The assets is among a number of paid for with lottery money that were frozen after the Asset Forfeiture Unit acquired a preservation purchase in December 2022.

The politically-connected Nevhutanda, who was appointed because the NLC board chairperson by former President Jacob Zuma in 2009 and was close to high-ups within the ANC Management, previous NLC former Commissioner Thabang Mampane, and ex-Main running officer Phillemon Letwaba, have all been implicated while in the corruption which overwhelmed the NLC on their own enjoy.

Also implicated are former board users William Huma, who resigned immediately after he was confronted with evidence of how he experienced profited from corrupt lottery grants, and Muthuhadini Madzivhandila, who has since died.

Every time a new administration, including the total board and govt, took in excess of within the NLC in late 2022 and early 2023, they identified a “chaotic mess” during the documentation referring to proactive funding, Substantially of which was paper-based. Crucial paperwork have been lacking. Documents held for safekeeping by document storage firm Metrofile were signed out and under no circumstances returned.

The NLC was ready to Get better copies of some ตรวจ สลากกินแบ่ง รัฐบาล paperwork from its Mimecast e mail archiving system along with the laptops in their assistants and aid employees.

News reviews
In his 1 December 2018 letter, addressed to then SSA Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba, Nevhutanda wrote: “The NLC has noted with grave concern possible info security breaches and the unauthorised use and/or dissemination of private facts acquired as a result of performing official functions from the Commission by NLC workforce. The pursuits are intended to undermine the integrity on the Fee although disrupting the effective features [of your NLC] and triggering insurmountable reputational hurt towards 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 corporation secretary, Nomphumelelo Nene.

Nene is now facing a disciplinary inquiry right after she was unsuccessful in legal motion to put aside results of irregular expenditure on her look at.

The objective of her affidavit, Nene mentioned, was “to document the occasions which transpired relating to information and facts protection breaches on the Countrywide Lotteries Commission”.

She listed several news experiences which she claimed had been the results of those “breaches” (see at the conclusion of this informative article).

Nene said that a whistle-blower approached the NLC alleging that one among its employees, Sello Qhino, had “presented her labeled NLC Information and persistently encouraged her to provide the information to GroundUp”.

Qhino, who blew the whistle on a series of dodgy lottery-funded tasks in Kuruman right after makes an attempt to raise the issue internally were being disregarded, was subsequently fired.

Referring to an eighteen November 2018 report while in the Everyday Dispatch in regards to the misappropriation of Lottery money, Nene said the NLC identified and then suspended Zintle Rungqu. She was an personnel within the NLC’s East London office, who was the associate and also the mom of whistleblower Mzukise Makatse’s a few youngsters.

Rungqu and Makatse consider Rungqu was punished since Makatse blew the whistle. She was suspended and charged internally, While using the NLC investing R470,000 on lawyers to depict it, but was observed not responsible and permitted to return to work.

“The frequent Consider these articles or blog posts is the fact [they require] categorized details referring to proactive funding projects,” Nene reported in her affidavit.

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

The two Makatse and Qhino are taking part in an NLC reparation process intended to recognise the damage some people endured with the arms of the NLC. Apologies and, sometimes, economical payment are predicted.

“Some persons have been truly influenced extremely negatively by this … This is absolutely unpleasant,” NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz instructed the Day-to-day Maverick very last yr.

“I fulfilled a number of these folks. It had been just so heart-wrenching that their whole lives are turned the wrong way up,” stated Scholtz.

Between those she achieved have been Qhino and Makatse.

Protected System required for whistleblowers
The SSA uncovered the absence at time of an appropriate channel for whistleblowers to report corruption led them to show to your media.

“Failure to have a committed anti-corruption channel will lead to workers presenting these instances outside of the NLC,” the SSA reported in its conclusions.

“Supplied the magnitude of corruption in point out establishments, it remains vital that it makes certain that the NLC complies with all security prescripts Which its concentrate is on making certain that illegal and irregular conduct is adequately mitigated in opposition to and by making certain an ample channel for whistle-blowers to report untoward carry out with no currently being intimidated.”

It encouraged the NLC set up a “Risk-free channel” for employees to deliver information on any “untoward activity” that could not protect against or discourage personnel from blowing the whistle. A whistle-blowers policy, according to the Shielded Disclosures Act 25 of 2000, is a prerequisite.”

Media reports Nene shown
A ten December 2017 report within the Limpopo Mirror about corruption and maladministration involving the Lottery-funded Vhembe Wellbeing and Physical fitness Centre in Limpopo. GroundUp has worked carefully with Anton van Zyl, an investigative reporter and proprietor with the Limpopo Mirror, to reveal NLC corruption. “The short article experienced features of data not available in the general public area, therefore elevating concern on internal Info safety breaches. The allegations while in the media have been independently investigated,” Nene mentioned. “Nevertheless, employees accountable for divulging labeled details have nonetheless to get discovered”;
A 28 January 2018 write-up posted through the Dally Dispatch “citing a lot of allegations from the Limpopo Mirror write-up revealed on ten December 2017 in addition to a new allegation relating to a former employee by the name of Mzukisi Makatse. He was billed and summarily dismissed with the menace brought about to your organisation.”
A 16 November 2018 post within the Lowvelder in regards to the misappropriation of NLC funds involving a lottery-funded drug rehabilitation centre. GroundUp has reported how, Regardless of receiving R27-million in lottery grants, the rehab hasn't been finished. “The Lowvelder posting contained categorized information with regard to NLC policy, elevating further more considerations of inside information safety breaches,” Nene explained in her affidavit. “The prima facie proof with regards to these allegations didn't warrant an unbiased Investigation, however [it] highlighted the heightened details safety hazards inside the NLC.”
A 22 November 2018 GroundUp expose about a dodgy R27.5-million grant to Denzhe Primary Treatment, a hijacked NPO. Nene reported GroundUp experienced confirmed in its Tale that it had been determined by leaked NLC documents. This was Regardless of the NLC rejecting a PAIA (Marketing of Access to Information) request for particulars about the challenge, she mentioned