The accountants who aided loot the Lottery
The accountants who aided loot the Lottery
Blog Article
The Special Investigating Device has identified five accounting firms that helped loot Lottery money. Graphic: Lisa Nelson
The Specific Investigating Unit has discovered five accounting and auditing companies that assisted non-income corporations loot Lottery money intended for “excellent causes”.
The accounting firms compiled fraudulent money statements employed by these organizations to apply for Lottery funding, the SIU told Parliament.
Performing Main national investigations officer Zodwa Xesibe explained the SIU would take motion to own these corporations blacklisted.
A four-year probe from the หวย ออก Specific Investigating Device (SIU) has exposed 5 accounting and auditing firms that served dodgy non-profit businesses loot a huge selection of countless rands designed for “very good leads to” within the Lottery.
These companies had been explained through the SIU as “professional enablers,” who “compiled fraudulent monetary statements” that were used by the companies to make an application for Lottery funding.
The 5 corporations ended up named in Parliament with the SIU’s performing Main countrywide investigations officer Zodwa Xesibe. They may be TTP Consulting, Dzata Accountants, Magodi Consulting, Mageba Ntuli Consulting and Tafta Consulting and Accounting Providers.
Fraudulent financials produced by these five accounting firms helped practically 40 organizations get their fingers on lottery funding, based on the SIU presentation.
Based upon a Software made up of data with all lottery grants considering that 2002, these corporations obtained above R314-million in funding.
“These NPCs have been funded via the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) even so the cash weren't made use of for his or her supposed purpose,” Xesibe told Parliament’s Trade, Business and Competitiveness Portfolio Committee very last week.
The SIU, the Hawks plus the Nationwide Prosecuting Authority (NPA) had been in Parliament to report back to the committee on development in bringing folks and organisations associated with looting the lottery to book.
Xesibe instructed GroundUp that the SIU meant to lodge grievances versus the accounting companies associated and was checking if these companies were registered and, If that's the case, with which Skilled bodies.
“We wish these firms to generally be blacklisted,” she explained to GroundUp.
To qualify for Lottery funding, an organisation was needed to deliver two a long time of annual money statements, Xesibe stated in Parliament.
Nonetheless, being an ongoing 6-year investigation into lottery corruption by GroundUp has discovered, hijacked non-profit organisations (NPOs) or new shelf non-earnings corporations (NPCs) without having money track records had been utilized to apply for funding.
In certain circumstances, Nearly identical money statements have been developed for unrelated organisations, typically with only the names in the organisations altered, GroundUp’s investigation found.
Paperwork submitted by genuine NPCs for unsuccessful grant apps ended up usually utilized by new or hijacked NPCs and NPOs to submit an application for funding. The details and paperwork of the unsuccessful applicants were being supplied by senior Lottery officials into the dodgy applicants.
With cursory or - typically - no verification, these dodgy applicants were awarded millions of rands in grants. From time to time supplemental tranches of resources were being paid out without the need of Substantially checking within the progress of jobs.
The overwhelming majority of those grants had been manufactured by way of proactive funding, which was at the guts on the looting of your lottery. Proactive funding permitted the Minister of Trade, Business and Competitiveness, or even the NLC along with its board, to recognize results in to fund devoid of initially demanding an application. This was stopped any time a new NLC board was appointed.
R2-billion in grants beneath investigation
SIU head Advocate Andy Mothibi stated the SIU was now investigating grants valued at in excess of R2-billion, and the device was nevertheless consistently acquiring suggestion-offs about additional corruption.
He explained to MPs that the SIU’s investigation were damaged into 3 phases: the very first, which has been finalised, probed dodgy grants amounting to R280-million, and the 2nd, also done, concerned R247-million. While in the third stage, as a consequence of be finalised at the conclusion of the year, the SIU is investigating grants valued at Virtually R906-million, involving 40 NPOs and NPCs, Mothibi reported.
He mentioned the SIU would apply “shortly” for that Presidential Proclamation, originally granted in October 2020 to research corruption involving lottery grants, to be extended to include procurement via the NLC.
The SIU investigation had thus far triggered thirteen disciplinary referrals towards the NLC, and administrative referrals to SARS and the Companies and Intellectual Properties Fee to blacklist individuals implicated within the looting. Complaints involving two people were referred to your Legal Observe Council plus the SA Institute of Chartered Accountants.
The SIU had noticed several tendencies under the past NLC board and executive - lots of whom happen to be implicated in looting - Mothibi instructed MPs.
This included a “pattern of collusion involving NLC officials and NPOs and NPCs”, “the hijacking of NPOs and NPCs” and “basic maladministration from the acceptance of grants,” he said.
Gradual progress from the NPA
The SIU has frozen homes, properties, cars and also other property well worth tens of hundreds of thousands which were acquired with lottery money, but MPs expressed problem at slow development in prosecuting People associated with the looting. (The SIU is mandated only to recover property bought with stolen state resources and does not have prosecuting powers).
Even though the SIU has referred fifteen issues on the NPA, so far only two folks have been brought right before a court. Two Gentlemen appeared in court docket in Kimberley lately in connection with misappropriated cash collected for your project to combat gender-based mostly violence.
In August 2022 Christopher Tshivule was sentenced to eight yrs in jail for his section within a R1.5-million lottery grant fraud. Fees in opposition to two persons billed with him, who the SIU has called “kingpins” from the corruption that confused the NLC, were being dropped.
Important-Typical Mmeli Makinyane, the acting divisional commissioner for priority offences, instructed MPs the Hawks were now investigating sixteen lottery corruption-connected circumstances. One more a single - the Kimberley make a difference - is right before a court and two are despatched to the NPA for a call to prosecute. An extra 5 instances are now being investigated with the SAPS detective and forensic services, he stated.
Describing The explanations for that delay in prosecutions, NPA Deputy Countrywide Director Rodney de Kock explained Section of The explanation was that the Hawks needed to do additional investigations every time they acquired dossiers from the SIU.
“In essence, the investigations undertaken by the SIU will not fulfill felony specifications for prosecutions.”
Therefore, the NPA had to operate with investigators during the DPCI (the Hawks) and SAPS to conduct legal investigations and be certain that the proof meets legal prosecution benchmarks, he stated, including: “Having said that, the function of your SIU is vital and contributes greatly to this method.”
De Kock said which the SIU’s investigation “normally ends in several referrals. The referrals could ultimately bring about one particular docket and 1 courtroom case.”
He claimed that 12 issues, that happen to be “around eighty five% total”, ended up getting jointly investigated via the Hawks plus the SIU’s Specialised Economic Operations Unit. (The majority of these scenarios, 7 of which were being lodged in 2020, include former NLC chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba, who resigned below a cloud in 2022, and Pretoria lawyer Leslie Ramulifho.)
De Kock said the NPA confronted quite a few “worries” in prosecuting cases. These, he reported, involved
the lapse of time in between once the offences were dedicated along with the issuing in the Presidential Proclamation on one November 2020;
“unavailability of witnesses and/or documentary evidence” (Previously this calendar year, the SIU advised the committee that key paperwork required in a few prosecutions were deleted through the NLC Pc process or experienced long gone lacking from Metrofile, a warehouse in which copies of paperwork are archived and stored);
The truth that some implicated persons remain used by NLC; and
A obstacle towards the legality of the Presidential Proclamation by previous NLC chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda.
“The NPA is devoted to making certain finalisation in these issues. To this conclusion, a crew of focused prosecutors has actually been allocated to oversee all NLC issues presently underneath investigation,” de Kock stated. “Matters are taken care of like a precedence. As soon as [the] investigations are finished, the NPA is likely to make a call.”
What the businesses say (or don’t)
GroundUp was only capable of get comment from on the list of 5 businesses accused through the SIU in Parliament of producing fraudulent annual monetary statements,TTP Consulting.
Aubrey Moeng, among TTP’s two directors, said within an e-mail in response to concerns: “Because of consumer confidentiality, we need to suggest that TTP Consulting just isn't willing to disclose consumers’ monetary private facts with the public or media … with no consent from the customer or even a lawful cause.”
The organization is usually a “spouse” of quite a few state entities, together with SARS plus the CIPC, In keeping with its Web site.
Neither of the two directors of Dzata Accountants, who're both of those detailed as inactive to the CIPC sign up of providers, responded to emailed concerns. The organization has actually been deregistered by the CIPC for failing to post economic statements considering that 2021.
The sole director of Mageba Ntuli Investing and Consulting Provider, Patrick Zulu, died three years in the past, In line with Formal information. The company was deregistered because of the CIPC for failing to post fiscal statements because 2021.
Matamela Magodi, the only director of Magodi Consultants, didn't reply to queries emailed to him.
GroundUp was not able to obtain any listing for Tafta Consulting and Accounting Providers While using the CIPC. We had been also unable to trace any of the corporation’s administrators to request comment.
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