The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Hawks have seized documents belonging to National Lottery Board officials in Kimberley, Northern Cape, on Thursday.
The raid follows alleged corrupt activities at board offices in the province.
The SIU says it has uncovered a corrupt activity in which lottery board officials allegedly approached Non-Profit Organisations (NPOs) who were looking for funding and facilitated their applications. Once successful NPOs would pay a 30% gratification to officials.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago says their investigation into the alleged corruption started in 2020.
“Once they have applied then they get cut off 30% that is shared between the officials and the runner they have. That is the reparation that has been going on for a while. And it has happened to many of the contracts given out from this office.
Update on the SIU search and seizure operation in Kimberley:
Kganyago further explains, “We cannot quantify the amount, but obviously there is a lot of money involved because the funding that comes from here is millions; therefore if they are getting 30% of all funding happening here then it’s a lot of money.”
Two officials in Kimberley are alleged to have run a scheme where they would take cuts from non-profit organisations for approving funds.
Several million rands are involved in the scheme. The SIU says it will institute legal proceedings to recover financial losses once investigations are concluded. Kganyago says once they have been concluded, a report will be handed to the President.
“We are now finalising the first phase and we are going to give the report to the President – what we call interim report to the President by the end of April. And then we have already started phase 2 which we hope to finish in November to give the President the report in December. But at the rate things are going because we are getting new allegations on daily basis, we might have to give a report and it might not be final at that time so that we finish what is remaining in this investigation. You will know that we started this investigation in November 2020.
The SIU says allegations of corruption at the National Lottery run deep – and affect nearly all its offices across the country.
