Lottery looters allegedly hijacked R18m GBV grant
An organisation helping victims of abuse was allegedly hijacked in 2018 to apply for an R18m grant from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC), reports GroundUp.
The looters used a fraudulent bank account and transferred the funds, meant to go towards a rural cycling project in Limpopo, to their own companies.
Now, action is finally being taken against some of the people accused of siphoning off millions from Yolisa Yako ‘s Make Me Movement (MMM) grant.
Last month, the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) obtained a preservation order, allowing it to freeze a smallholding in Centurion, near Pretoria, bought using funds misappropriated from the MMM grant.
The main beneficiaries of the funds were Collin Tshisimba, his ‘life partner’ Fulufhelo Kharivhe, and Jacob Ramuhashi, who claimed to be MMM’s director in the grant application.
They are among 16 different people and entities named in the order.
Detailed questions were sent to Collin Tshisimba via WhatsApp.
He responded: ‘Vo(e)tsek’.
Ramuhashi and Kharivhe, who were sent questions via Tshisimba, did not respond. Yako said she was approached in 2017 by Sibongile Mokhokha, who was a beneficiary of MMM’s programme.
She offered to help her apply for the grant.
She handed over several documents to Mokhokha, having been told they were necessary to apply for a grant.
These included copies of her ID documents and those of MMM’s directors, as well as the organisation’s registration certificate and its constitution, according to GroundUp.
And then suddenly, Mokhokha went quiet.
MMM’s application for R17.8m was submitted to the NLC on 7 July 2018 and approved the next day under the NLC’s discredited proactive funding mechanism, which was widely abused to loot the lottery under the NLC’s previous leadership.
In the application, Ramuhashi signed documents as the director of MMM.
The application included fraudulent financial statements prepared by Dzata Accountants, flagged by the SIU as one of several firms that helped organisations defraud the NLC.
The first tranche of R14.2m was paid into a Nedbank account in MMM’s name on 27 July 2018.
A second tranche of R3.6m followed on 23 January 2019, even though no work on the funded project had taken place.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
