A decision within the Distinctive Investigation Unit’s (SIU) application to amend the 2020 Presidential Proclamation is predicted by the top of February.
The original proclamation only allowed the SIU to investigate grants made by the Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) concerning one January 2014 and 7 November 2020.
The SIU is in search of a mandate to investigate lottery-funded initiatives that slide outside the house that period.
Additionally, it wishes to investigate fraud and corruption connected to the NLC’s procurement of expert services, which was not included fox888 less than the first 2020 proclamation.
The NLC has experienced new administration and board since 2022 and is aiding the SIU with its investigations.
A choice on the applying because of the Exclusive Investigating Unit (SIU) for your amendment of the 2020 Presidential Proclamation mandating it to analyze corruption involving the Nationwide Lotteries Fee (NLC) and its workers, is expected by the top on the month.

This was confirmed via the Office of Justice’s spokesperson Kgalalelo Masibi. “The commitment was submitted into the Department late past 12 months and is particularly staying well prepared for submission for the Minister to recommend the authorisation with the amendment to your proclamation. A call could be envisioned by the end of February 2025,” Masibi advised GroundUp.

The first proclamation only allowed the SIU to research grants created by the NLC between one January 2014 and seven November 2020. This remaining the SIU hamstrung when investigating fraud and corruption involving the NLC’s procurement of companies and appointment of company vendors, which ran to a huge selection of an incredible number of rand.

In its drive to amend the proclamation, the SIU is seeking a mandate allowing for it to analyze lottery-funded assignments that drop outside the period of time coated by the first proclamation, For the reason that NLC’s corruption ongoing after the proclamation was gazetted.

Even though the SIU couldn’t immediately look into procurement, due to the fact the original proclamation did not include things like it, it seconded two of its officers to the NLC to assist it in its investigations into dodgy procurement.

GroundUp has also discovered that the SIU along with the NLC a short while ago signed a whole new letter of engagement extending the connection in between the two entities by a yr. Their agreement expired at the end of December 2024.

The NLC’s probe, which includes the support in the SIU’s seconded officers and a number of other damning investigations by independent audit businesses, indicates the SIU will have a soar commence inside a probe into procurement If your proclamation is extended.

The NLC and the SIU have also been inundated with suggestion-offs. Most are from whistleblowers about dodgy grant and provide chain management fraud and corruption, several of which happened soon after November 2020.

The 2020 proclamation features an exception for the SIU to investigate alleged corruption that happened just before or following the date of its publication …“but is related to, connected with, incidental or ancillary towards the issues … or contain the same people, entities or contracts”.

The SIU’s motivation also seeks a mandate to investigate fraud and corruption involving the NLC’s offer chain management as well as the procurement of solutions.

The SIU Earlier told GroundUp it had been investigating around 700 dodgy challenge grants, with much more suggestion-offs coming in. Quite a few NLC workers are struggling with disciplinary costs regarding their alleged involvement in dodgy procurement. Some others resigned when they were being billed. The SIU has also claimed most of Those people included to your police.

In 2022 the SIU informed Parliament’s Trade, Sector and Levels of competition portfolio committee that it had been investigating dodgy lottery grants valued at more than R1.4-billion. Very last yr SIU head Advocate Andy Mothibi told the committee that the value of dodgy grants under investigation had developed to more than R2-billion.

SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago declined to touch upon the applying to extend the proclamation.

Dodgy procurement
In 2023, the Auditor-Normal instructed the NLC’s management to handle “vital inner Management deficiencies discovered to improve procurement and contract management”. This came following the Auditor-Standard’s NLC audit in 2021 uncovered much more than R23-million in irregular expenditure and R36-million in accounting errors made in prior a long time. Items worsened the next yr, Together with the Auditor-Typical’s 2022 administration report on the NLC revealing approximately R57-million in irregular expenditure due to the contravention of offer chain management laws.

Amongst the problems flagged in damning reviews by the Auditor-Typical, and by auditors appointed with the NLC, were irregular expenditure on facts engineering and sky-superior investing on attorneys. The NLC struggled to answer a published parliamentary question about its expenditure on legal charges, as crucial documents with facts of multimillion-rand litigation expenditure have vanished.

Another space of issue is definitely the tens of millions of rand in expending on media and communications, that has a disproportionate volume paid into the Sunday Entire world newspaper.

Numerous rand in dodgy payments were being also manufactured to NLC services vendors, which includes a R498,000 payment to assistance provider Neo Consulting to research a pc hack that never occurred.

ProEthics, which recommended the NLC on ethics in the event the organisation was confused by rampant corruption, was also used to launder payments to support companies. The NLC paid out ProEthics in excess of R28.4-million. The corporate, consequently, explained it paid out other support companies to the NLC’s Guidance — including a R1.seven-million payment for your flash mob that under no circumstances took place.

The findings of unbiased investigations commissioned with the NLC’s new board and executive are crucial in formulating disciplinary costs versus implicated personnel, such as NLC enterprise secretary Nompumelelo Nene.

Nene is billed with alleged irregularities while in the appointments of and payments to quite a few services companies. She is likewise accused of supplying “Fake or incomplete facts in submissions justifying deviations from procurement procedures”.