Only one case in court for Lotto looting four years after investigation approved

There is only one case in court related to the alleged looting of billions of rand at the National Lotteries Commission (NLC), four years after the Special Investigating Unit started its investigation.   

The slow pace of prosecution and conclusion of criminal investigations into the commission was criticised by MPs who acknowledged the need for strong cases while expressing concern about the delays. The Special Investigating Unit (SIU), National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (Hawks) briefed parliament on Thursday on the state of investigations in the NLC saga. 

In 2020, President Cyril Ramaphosa issued a proclamation authorising the SIU to investigate maladministration and awarding of funds to hijacked nonprofit organisations by NLC officials from 2014 to 2020.   

SIU head advocate Andy Mothibi told parliament the unit had completed its investigations into more than R500m worth of funding and handed over the cases for further investigation to the Hawks. He committed that the unit would complete investigations of corruption allegations into funding of R905,901,910 in December. The overall value of contracts probed was R2bn. 

The buck seems to stop at the Hawks as the NPA has only one case in court and two cases which the authority still needs to decide on whether to prosecute.

Hawks Maj-Gen Mmeli Makinyane told parliament the directorate did not have enough staff.   

“Our biggest challenge is the workforce. We are operating at 52%. We are investigating 18,000 dockets with 700,000 charges with an estimated value of R1-trillion. There is a lot of work to do but not enough people,” Makinyane said.   

Makinyane said they were now investigating 16 corruption cases involving the NLC. They arrested two commission beneficiaries, Peter Sedibe and Johannes Khoza, in August in Soweto for fraud. The duo had a nonprofit organisation, Kgatelopele Foundation, in Kimberley which was approved to get funding of R885,000.

All MPs in the portfolio committee on trade, industry and competition raised questions about delays in the investigations.

“Out of 19 cases there is only one in court, there clearly has to be a problem with regards to the bottlenecks of the cases. We are proceeding at a snail's pace. The proclamation into investigation was made in 2020 and some of the officials might have disappeared into the woodwork.

“Something must be done to speed up the process. I understand the long arm of the law to make sure you have a watertight case, but we have to also understand the agitation on the ground,” said ACDP deputy president Wayne Thring.

Deputy national director of public prosecutions advocate Rodney de Kock assured MPs the cases were a priority for the NPA. He said most of the cases investigated by the Hawks were 85% complete.

“The NPA is mindful of the load that it has and we are all aware our courts are congested. This means even if we get a case onto the court roll it will take time to get finalised. There are systematic issues. I assure the committee this work receives priority,” he said.

Makinyane said the Hawks had a challenge of securing witnesses.

“We have seven members looking into those cases as a team. That team also works on other cases. It is always our wish to finalise cases as rapidly as possible but the evidence that we are gathering at times delays us,” he said. 

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