Leaked audit reports show extent of alleged lottery graft
Former National Lotteries Commission (NLC) chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba recommended that a R4.8m grant for a rural soccer tournament be given to a company in which both his wife and his business partner were directors, reports GroundUp.
The application by non-profit company Zibsimanzi, of which his wife Rebotile Malomane was a director, was recommended by Letwaba.
It was approved, on the same day, by former NLC Commissioner Thabang Mampane.
This has come to light in leaked reports by audit firm SkX, which was hired by the NLC to investigate allegations of corruption.
The reports, buried by the NLC for almost two years, are now being acted on, according to NLC spokesperson, Ndivhuho Mafela. Under the new chair of the board, Barney Pityana, the NLC is reviewing its entire funding process.
The Zibsimanzi grant was processed in just eight days and R3m of the funding was diverted, via a firm of consulting engineers, to help pay for a R27m luxury home for former NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda.
Letwaba told SkX that neither he nor his wife were aware of the application by Zibsimanzi.
Letwaba resigned with immediate effect in August 2022, shortly before he was due to appear at a disciplinary hearing to answer charges of abusing his position to enrich himself and his family.
Mampane also resigned with immediate effect a month later, after the SIU questioned her about how almost R4m in lottery funding from a grant for a Limpopo school had been used to pay for her luxury home in a golf estate in Hartbeespoort in North West, reports GroundUp.
Zibsimanzi had ‘submitted fraudulent documents’ – financial statements and a Memorandum of Incorporation – in its application, said SkX.
The fact that Letwaba’s wife was also a director of the company had not been disclosed in the application.
Themba Mabundza, Letwaba’s co-director in several businesses and also a director of Zibsimanzi, is one of two people whose names appear on the grant application.
Mabunza was Letwaba’s business partner in two other companies. He was also a director of another company, Life for Impact, which also benefited handsomely from lottery funding.
'Both Zibsimanzi and Life for Impact received grants in 2017 within six months apart, totalling R14 906 800,’ SkX said.
Letwaba and Mabundza had signed the Life for Impact grant agreement on the same date, SkX added.
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