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The National Lotteries Board (NLB) revealed that it is holding R900 million in unpaid grants, while thousands of charities that support the most marginalised members of our society are unable to access funding.

At the same time, millions are paid out to questionable organisations. I will write to the Public Protector today to request that she investigate the granting of millions in lottery money to politically-connected organisations, while millions earmarked for deserving charities go unspent.

The most concerning cases are:

• The awarding of R1 million to COSATU for its annual celebration earlier this year.
• The awarding of R40 million to the National Youth Development Agency for its totalitarian talk shop last year.
• The awarding of a R41 million grant to Makhaya Arts; the organisation received this money two weeks after the NLB chairperson’s daughter started working there.

The Public Protector needs to identify whether political connections were used to channel money towards any one of these organisations and whether the Lotteries Act was therefore breached in the process.

The NLB is guided by very specific guidelines on how, why and when to award money to applicants and if these regulations were breached at any point in the awarding of these three grants, a breach of the Lotteries Act would have taken place and justice needs to be served.

We cannot tolerate a situation where deserving charities are shut out whilst politically-connected individuals and organisations keep stuffing their pockets with NLB resources.
I have PREVIOUSLY submitted questions to the minister, written to the NLB, asked questions in the Portfolio Committee and written to the Minister of Trade and Industry. But nobody seems to be willing to take on this issue. The time has come for the Public Protector to step in and clean this mess up.

Our national lottery can not be used as a siphon to fund the ANC and its fellow travellers. The money it raises must be used to help those South Africans who cannot help themselves.