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The Democratic Alliance (DA) has today written to Trade & Industry Minister, Ebrahim Patel requesting him to dissolve the board of the National Lottery Commission (NLC) with immediate effect and to place it under administration.

This follows very serious and credible allegations against the board and in particular, the Chief Operations Officer, Phillemon Letwaba, relating to multi-million Rand grants made to non-profit organisations that involve family and friends of Mr. Letwaba.

The DA commends GroundUp and journalist Raymond Joseph for having done sterling work in uncovering these suspicious payments which have only sought to benefit and uplift the lives of those close to Mr. Letwaba including mansions and expensive cars, despite the legal threats intended to bully Mr. Joseph by Letwaba.

Some of these allegations relate to:

• An NPO, whose sole director is the cousin of Mr. Letwaba, was awarded R11 million to build a sports facility in Limpopo;
• Letwaba’s brother's private company scored a R15 million contract to build a drug rehabilitation centre near Pretoria. After this was revealed he resigned - only for Letwaba's cousin to take over as the sole director of the company; and,
• A construction company with links to Mr. Letwaba was involved in the construction of a R23 million old age home and R19.6 million museum and library in the Northern Cape.

In December 2018, the Portfolio Committee on Trade & Industry agreed to support an investigation by the DTI and NLC into allegations of corruption within the Commission and awarding of grants.

To date, the investigation has been bogged down through obstruction by the NLC, back and forth requests for information between the NLC and DTI all the while with Mr. Letwaba still in his job and millions continuing to flow into NGO’s that do not deliver on their promises.

In September 2019, Minister Patel asked the NLC to press criminal charges relating to some of these cases with links to the COO. To date, no one has been charged and no one has been suspended.

It has become abundantly clear that the NLC Board is unwilling and unable to take action when it comes to allegations of corruption against senior staff members of the NLC. It also cannot investigate allegations against itself. It is akin to turkeys voting for Christmas.

Therefore, the only option available to the Minister is to fire the board, place the NLC under administration and start from scratch. This will allow forensic auditors to do their work and pursue criminal charges against those that have misappropriated funds meant for good causes.

Issued by DA