The accountants who served loot the Lottery
The accountants who served loot the Lottery
Blog Article
The Special Investigating Device has identified 5 accounting firms that aided loot Lottery funds. Graphic: Lisa Nelson
The Specific Investigating Device has determined five accounting and auditing companies that served non-gain firms loot Lottery cash meant for “fantastic triggers”.
The accounting corporations compiled fraudulent economical statements employed by these businesses to make an application for Lottery funding, the SIU explained to Parliament.
Acting Main nationwide investigations officer Zodwa Xesibe said the SIU would get motion to acquire these firms blacklisted.
A four-calendar year probe with the fox888 Specific Investigating Unit (SIU) has exposed 5 accounting and auditing firms that helped dodgy non-profit organizations loot many millions of rands designed for “good brings about” from your Lottery.
These companies were explained via the SIU as “Expert enablers,” who “compiled fraudulent economic statements” that were employed by the companies to submit an application for Lottery funding.
The five providers were being named in Parliament from the SIU’s performing chief nationwide investigations officer Zodwa Xesibe. They are really TTP Consulting, Dzata Accountants, Magodi Consulting, Mageba Ntuli Consulting and Tafta Consulting and Accounting Providers.
Fraudulent financials made by these five accounting firms served just about 40 companies get their palms on lottery funding, in accordance with the SIU presentation.
Depending on a Device that contains knowledge with all lottery grants considering that 2002, these corporations bought more than R314-million in funding.
“These NPCs had been funded with the Countrywide Lotteries Commission (NLC) but the resources were not made use of for their intended reason,” Xesibe instructed Parliament’s Trade, Marketplace and Levels of competition Portfolio Committee previous week.
The SIU, the Hawks and the Nationwide Prosecuting Authority (NPA) have been in Parliament to report to the committee on development in bringing folks and organisations involved in looting the lottery to guide.
Xesibe told GroundUp the SIU meant to lodge complaints against the accounting firms included and was examining if these firms have been registered and, If that's the case, with which Experienced bodies.
“We want these corporations to become blacklisted,” she advised GroundUp.
To qualify for Lottery funding, an organisation was necessary to create two yrs of yearly financial statements, Xesibe stated in Parliament.
On the other hand, as an ongoing 6-yr investigation into lottery corruption by GroundUp has uncovered, hijacked non-profit organisations (NPOs) or new shelf non-income businesses (NPCs) without having economic keep track of documents had been accustomed to apply for funding.
In some circumstances, Pretty much identical economic statements were being made for unrelated organisations, frequently with just the names of the organisations improved, GroundUp’s investigation discovered.
Paperwork submitted by legitimate NPCs for unsuccessful grant applications have been typically used by new or hijacked NPCs and NPOs to apply for funding. The small print and files of your unsuccessful applicants were provided by senior Lottery officials for the dodgy applicants.
With cursory or - frequently - no verification, these dodgy applicants had been awarded a lot of rands in grants. Sometimes additional tranches of resources ended up paid out with out A great deal examining within the progress of projects.
The vast majority of those grants ended up built by way of proactive funding, which was at the heart on the looting of your lottery. Proactive funding permitted the Minister of Trade, Field and Opposition, or even the NLC along with its board, to recognize triggers to fund with no to start with demanding an software. This was stopped each time a new NLC board was appointed.
R2-billion in grants underneath investigation
SIU head Advocate Andy Mothibi claimed the SIU was at the moment investigating grants valued at more than R2-billion, and also the device was still on a regular basis receiving tip-offs about a lot more corruption.
He instructed MPs that the SIU’s investigation had been damaged into a few phases: the initial, which has been finalised, probed dodgy grants amounting to R280-million, and the next, also done, involved R247-million. Inside the third stage, resulting from be finalised at the conclusion of the calendar year, the SIU is investigating grants valued at almost R906-million, involving forty NPOs and NPCs, Mothibi mentioned.
He stated that the SIU would utilize “before long” for that Presidential Proclamation, initially granted in Oct 2020 to research corruption involving lottery grants, to become prolonged to include procurement by the NLC.
The SIU investigation had to this point led to 13 disciplinary referrals into the NLC, and administrative referrals to SARS and the Companies and Intellectual Homes Commission to blacklist individuals implicated while in the looting. Issues involving two people today were referred into the Lawful Observe Council and also the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants.
The SIU had noticed quite a few tendencies underneath the earlier NLC board and government - lots of whom are actually implicated in looting - Mothibi informed MPs.
This provided a “pattern of collusion in between NLC officials and NPOs and NPCs”, “the hijacking of NPOs and NPCs” and “basic maladministration while in the approval of grants,” he stated.
Slow development from the NPA
The SIU has frozen houses, properties, cars and trucks and other property well worth tens of thousands and thousands that were purchased with lottery cash, but MPs expressed issue at slow progress in prosecuting Those people associated with the looting. (The SIU is mandated only to Get well belongings bought with stolen condition cash and does not have prosecuting powers).
When the SIU has referred fifteen matters towards the NPA, up to now only two individuals have been brought right before a court docket. Two Guys appeared in courtroom in Kimberley a short while ago in reference to misappropriated cash collected to get a undertaking to beat gender-centered violence.
In August 2022 Christopher Tshivule was sentenced to 8 years in jail for his section inside a R1.five-million lottery grant fraud. Costs versus two people today charged with him, who the SIU has referred to as “kingpins” inside the corruption that confused the NLC, had been dropped.
Major-Normal Mmeli Makinyane, the acting divisional commissioner for priority offences, instructed MPs that the Hawks have been currently investigating 16 lottery corruption-similar scenarios. An additional a single - the Kimberley issue - is in advance of a courtroom and two are actually despatched to your NPA for a decision to prosecute. An extra five cases are increasingly being investigated with the SAPS detective and forensic companies, he mentioned.
Conveying the reasons for your hold off in prosecutions, NPA Deputy National Director Rodney de Kock claimed A part of The key reason why was that the Hawks had to do further more investigations whenever they been given dossiers from the SIU.
“In essence, the investigations undertaken because of the SIU do not satisfy felony specifications for prosecutions.”
Hence, the NPA experienced to operate with investigators within the DPCI (the Hawks) and SAPS to conduct criminal investigations and be certain that the proof fulfills felony prosecution benchmarks, he claimed, incorporating: “That said, the perform from the SIU is very important and contributes drastically to this method.”
De Kock stated which the SIU’s investigation “generally results in various referrals. The referrals may possibly eventually lead to one particular docket and one court situation.”
He reported that twelve issues, that are “roughly 85% total”, have been remaining jointly investigated by the Hawks and the SIU’s Specialised Economic Functions Unit. (Many of these situations, seven of which were being lodged in 2020, contain former NLC Main working officer Phillemon Letwaba, who resigned under a cloud in 2022, and Pretoria attorney Leslie Ramulifho.)
De Kock stated the NPA confronted many “difficulties” in prosecuting cases. These, he claimed, integrated
the lapse of your time between once the offences ended up fully commited as well as the issuing of your Presidential Proclamation on one November 2020;
“unavailability of witnesses and/or documentary proof” (Previously this 12 months, the SIU told the committee that important documents needed in certain prosecutions were deleted with the NLC Computer system procedure or had long gone lacking from Metrofile, a warehouse wherever copies of paperwork are archived and stored);
The point that some implicated people today are still used by NLC; and
A challenge to the legality of the Presidential Proclamation by former NLC chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda.
“The NPA is committed to guaranteeing finalisation in these matters. To this conclude, a group of focused prosecutors has long been allotted to oversee all NLC matters currently underneath investigation,” de Kock said. “Matters are dealt with to be a precedence. As soon as [the] investigations are accomplished, the NPA could make a decision.”
What the businesses say (or don’t)
GroundUp was only in a position to get comment from one of the 5 providers accused by the SIU in Parliament of manufacturing fraudulent yearly monetary statements,TTP Consulting.
Aubrey Moeng, certainly one of TTP’s two administrators, mentioned in an e mail in reaction to queries: “Because of customer confidentiality, we want to recommend that TTP Consulting isn't ready to disclose shoppers’ monetary private information with the public or media … without the consent from the consumer or simply a lawful reason.”
The organization is actually a “associate” of various condition entities, like SARS plus the CIPC, In keeping with its Web-site.
Neither of The 2 directors of Dzata Accountants, who are both of those stated as inactive about the CIPC register of providers, responded to emailed issues. The business is deregistered from the CIPC for failing to submit economical statements considering that 2021.
The only real director of Mageba Ntuli Investing and Consulting Provider, Patrick Zulu, died 3 decades ago, In line with Formal data. The corporate was deregistered by the CIPC for failing to post financial statements considering that 2021.
Matamela Magodi, the only director of Magodi Consultants, did not reply to thoughts emailed to him.
GroundUp was not able to uncover any listing for Tafta Consulting and Accounting Companies Together with the CIPC. We had been also struggling to trace any of the business’s administrators to ask for remark.