National Lotteries Commission to use funds from seized assets to atone for whistle-blower dismissals and distress

Jodi Scholtz the commissioner of National Lotteries Commission (NLC). (Photo: Jody Scholtz / X)

2 Oct 2024

The National Lotteries Commission has begun a reparation process that will lead to apologies to former staff members who were dismissed for being whistle-blowers of corruption at the public entity.

According to the National Lotteries Commissioner Jodi Scholtz, National Lotteries Commission (NLC) staff members were dismissed from their employment by the previous NLC board after blowing the whistle on corruption.

“Some individuals were really affected very negatively by this … This is really painful. I met a couple of these individuals. It was just so heart-wrenching that their whole lives have been turned upside down,” said Scholtz.

Scholtz revealed that the NLC board is feeling sorry for what happened to these individuals that were dismissed and has “written to some of these individuals that we are aware of, and we are now engaged in the process of them either sharing their stories, capturing it, and then determining what it is,” said Scholtz.

Currently, there are about five or six individuals that the NLC has communicated with and Scholtz believes that more individuals could come forward.

Read more: Redress for victimised whistle-blowing public servants is a critical step in reforming the public service

Jodi Scholtz the commissioner of the National Lotteries Commission. (Photo: Jody Scholtz / X)

Reparation process

Explaining the reparations process and matter of payments, Scholtz told Daily Maverick that the company will make non-disclosure agreements with whistle-blowers because “people hear the NLC and they think we’re sitting on a pot of money”.

According to Scholtz, the reparation process will start internally, and previous staff members will be speaking with the NLC board, explaining how they were wronged and affected. The board will offer its apologies to the affected employees.

Following the internal process, there will be an external process, where the NLC will engage with communities that were affected when the NLC conducted projects that collapsed in communities after money was looted, leaving buildings now being vandalised.

One example is the South African Youth Movement (SAYM), which received R20-million from the NLC to build an old age home in the rural Free State in 2017. The facility never opened.

Read more: Lottery coughed up R1.7-million for ‘amateurish’ flash mob that never played out

The funding for this reparation process, according to Scholtz, will come from selling seized 20 luxury properties and cars acquired with stolen lottery money.

“What we had intended is that [with] the sale of the properties or attached assets, we would use [those] funds.

“Like, for instance, the sale of the Terry Pheto house. It’s still busy with taxation, so we haven’t received those funds yet. [But] the intention is that we would use the sale of those properties to then help us,” said Scholtz.

Read more: Luxury home of Tsotsi star built with Lottery money fails to go under the hammer

In an open letter in 2023, NLC whistle-blowers Mzukisi Makatse and Sello Qhina, who lost their jobs, said, “Our wish is for the NLC to do justice to our plight and right the wrongs it committed against us. We lost everything because of the injustice the NLC meted against us. We respectfully believe that this must be corrected.”

Scholtz was appointed in February 2023 after she was a chief operating officer of the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition. Following her appointment, she promised to clean up the NLC after investigations led to discoveries of fraud and corruption in the company.

In 2022, GroundUp reported that the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) appeared before Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Trade and Industry, and reported losses amounting to about R1.4-billion, due to alleged corruption at the NLC that later increased to 700 grants valued at more than R2-billion.

GroundUp reported that the whole NLC board was changed, and Thabang Mampane, the former commissioner, resigned suddenly in August 2022, just a few weeks before her term was up after funds meant for building a school in Limpopo had been used to buy her a house in a fancy golf estate in North West.

The new lottery boss has been on a mission to rescue the corrupted NLC. The SIU is still conducting investigations into the NLC and more cases could be brought, with more assets seized. DM

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Reparation process