Minister Patel, fire the NLC’s Board and place it under administration

3 September 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) again calls on Minister Ebrahim Patel to fire the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) board and place the entity under administration after yesterday’s meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Trade, Industry and Competition.

In the meeting, the Director-General of the Department, Lionel October, informed us that an investigation into corruption at the NLC conducted by his department had been handed over to law enforcement agencies.

According to October, “After numerous articles continued to appear in the media alleging abuse of Lottery funding, the Department in March 2020, authorised an investigation into the allegations”. The mandate of this investigation included four projects namely; Life for Impact (R10 106 800); I am Made for God’s Glory (R11 000 000); Zibsimasi (R4 800 000) and Denzhe Primary Care (R27 500 000).

These allegations included the hijacking of a drug rehabilitation centre that was never completed to shelf companies (linked to the NLC hierarchy) that received grants.

Each of the aforementioned cases occurred under the current leadership of the NLC and yet they have remained untouched.

During yesterday’s meeting my colleague, Dean Macpherson MP asked the Chairperson of the NLC, Prof. Alfred Nevuthanda whether or not he would resign on account of this investigation and he responded by saying “A big N-O”.

This shows that the NLC leadership refuse to take responsibility for corruption that has engulfed the organisation or for the damage they have inflicted on it.

Despite attempts by the NLC’s leadership to distance themselves from this corruption – the DA remains unconvinced.

There can be no other option for Minister Patel than to show leadership and bring this sorry crisis in the NLC to and end, once and for all.

Issued by Mat Cuthbert, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry and Economic Development, 3 September 2020