Lottery should open its processes for scrutiny

There has been a series of news articles about the National Lottery Commission over the past year that raises serious red flags over its grants to worthy causes. The Dispatch is one of those newspapers asking the NLC tough questions about where the money is going, who is benefiting and why the NLC seems to be blatantly disregarding beneficiary vetting processes. Investigative news agency Groundup has also uncovered a shocking series of grants awarded to dubious projects under very questionable circumstances. It has exposed blatant conflicts of interest.

Asking basic questions about who benefits, what vetting procedures are followed and how the funds are used allows the public to hold the NLC to account for billions of rands that it has the power over distributing. In particular, questions have been raised about its socalled “proactive fund”, which amounts to about R140m annually.

As the name suggests, the commission uses this fund to proactively grant funds to worthy causes without the need for applications. This was supposedly to address urgent needs for funding by organisations that might not have the ability to submit formal applications.

Much of the information obtained by the journalists appears to be from public documents, including annual reports.

The Dispatch this week also exposed the fact that a former NLC employee, who says he was fired for refusing to rubber stamp an irregular payment to a beneficiary, is suing the NLC for damages.

Instead of agreeing to investigate these apparently corrupt transactions, NLC chair Professor Alfred Nevhutanda, has taken the bizarre step of asking the State Security Agency to investigate the journalists and to ascertain how they obtained the information on which they based their stories.

Usually when people seek to shoot the messenger, they hope that it will have a chilling effect on journalistic enthusiasm to look into mismanagement and corruption.

If this is Nevhutanda’s intention, he will be bitterly disappointed. He should not be trying to ascertain how journalists came upon the information against which they are holding the NLC to account. He should be opening the organisation up for scrutiny.

Groundup has uncovered a shocking series of grants awarded to dubious projects