Court dismisses Arthur Mafokate's bid to release house from preservation

The Pretoria high court on Tuesday dismissed, with costs, an application by musician and producer Arthur Mafokate to have the property he bought from funds received from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) released from a preservation order.

In December 2022, the Asset Forfeiture Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) obtained an order to preserve a guest house belonging to Mafokate, the sole member of 999 Music. 

This followed investigations by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) into the NLC concerning allegations that five nonprofit organisations (NPOs), which received grant funding of about R56.3m for community development projects, siphoned off some of the money for personal gain. 

NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said investigations revealed that the South African Arts and Development Organisation (SAADA), an NPO of which Mafokate was the sole director, was granted R9.3m to help unemployed youth in the rural areas to impart skills in music, video, film production, dance and radio.   

“Instead, SAADA used only R1.8m of the funds on the project and the remaining R7.5m to purchase a guest house known as La Villa Rosa in Midrand,” Mahanjana said. 

In court, Mafokate argued that he was entitled to the R7.5m as his businesses delivered the services as required by the NLC and that he had committed no offences.

“However, the NPA argued that though some kind of services were rendered, [the value] was at most R1.8m. The remainder of the funds were used to purchase the guest house, which was not the purpose of the grant allocation,” Mahanjana said. 

The NPA argued the funds used to buy the house were thus stolen from the NLC. She said the court agreed with the NPA that SAADA should have returned any unused funds to the NLC.

“The court also found Mafokate could give no reasonable explanation on how he could afford to purchase the guest house if it was not for NLC funds, particularly as his business accounts contained negligible balances when the grant was received from the NLC.” 

Mahanjana said the judgment paved the way for the AFU to enrol the matter for the final forfeiture of the guest house purchased with stolen NLC funds.

“Should the forfeiture application be successful, the guest house will be sold at a public auction and the proceeds returned to the NLC,” she said. 

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