A company that consults to government and big business on ethics billed the National Lotteries Commission NLC more than R28m for media monitoring and ethics-related ‘interventions’ at a time when the NLC was overwhelmed with allegations of corruption, fraud and conflicts of interest.

GroundUp reports that of the payments to ProEthics between 2019 and 2022, almost R6.3m was for ‘ethics interventions’.

ProEthics was also paid over R1.74m for ‘Ethics Media Monitoring’ during the same period.

Just over a month after he was appointed acting NLC commissioner on 1 September 2022, Lionel October, instructed company secretary Nompumelelo Nene to stop using ProEthics and to suspend any outstanding payments to the company.

Nene is currently on suspension pending a disciplinary hearing, which is expected to begin soon. October was recently appointed to the NLC board.

The payments to ProEthics are among several to be investigated by a new forensic panel that the NLC is setting up, according to a source with knowledge of what is being planned.

It has also been flagged by the SIU, which has applied to President Cyril Ramaphosa to extend its mandate to allow it to probe payments to NLC service providers as well as grants by the NLC.

ProEthics also attracted the attention of the Auditor-General (AG), which flagged at least one payment of R2 443 426 to ProEthics by the NLC, for failing to obtain three quotes as required by National Treasury.

Responding to detailed questions, ProEthics founding director Janette Minnar said she was unable to give details of the payments and the work done for the NLC because of a ‘confidentiality clause’ they had signed.

She warned: ‘… that should any defamatory statement be published or included in any press release we shall take all the necessary steps to hold you personally and GroundUp liable’.

Full GroundUp report