NATIONAL LOTTERIES COMMISSION ASSURES FAIR ALLOCATION OF SA LOTTERY FUNDS

After a number of cases involving the looting of South African lottery funds, the National Lottery Commission (NLC) announced that it was introducing strict new protocols for the allocation of grant funding.

One of the steps taken by the NLC is the creation of a new division, with the objective being to prevent rampant corruption. Members of the Trade, Industry and Competition parliamentary portfolio committee were told about the establishment of the new Inspectorate for Due Diligence and Compliance last week in Pretoria.

Members of Parliament were told that the Commission’s Risk Division had implemented fraud risk assessments in order to “identify fraud trends”.

According to the portfolio committee’s chairperson, Judy Hermans, two surprised, unannounced visits to NLC projects, which were completely unannounced.

“The committee was concerned about what would happen to incomplete capital projects currently under investigation,” said the ANC MP. “It urged the NLC to resolve these matters as far as possible.”

The announcement was welcomed by other MPs. Jaco Mulder said that the committee should continue to carry out more physical, unannounced oversight visits more often in order to ensure the transformation to an “accountable NLC under a new board.”

Matt Cuthbert, MP for the Democratic Party added that while the DA welcomed the opportunity to have visited several hijacked NLC projects in order to see the damage, “we remain sceptical about the Damascene conversion by ANC members of the portfolio committee. Since 2018, we were consistently warned about the industrial-scale looting that was taking place at the NLC and yet they chose to protect the NLC’s leadership at the expense of the vulnerable.”

Cuthbert added that the new leadership of the NLC “inspired confidence in terms of their transparency and willingness to deal with the rot in the organization.”

Five former senior NLC officials have been suspended so far, not including former NLC Commissioner, Thabang Mampane and the Commission’s former chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba.

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