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The Democratic Alliance (DA) today withdrew in protest from the selection process of the new National Lotteries Board before the trade and industry committee in parliament. We are extremely disappointed that the ANC approached this process in such a disingenuous manner that, when its own committee members didn't even bother to pitch up to vote, the ANC needed to ship in other MPs from outside the committee to reach quorum. These members, along with several members of the trade and industry committee, were not even present for the interviews of the people they were selecting. In these circumstances, what became clear is that the ANC predetermined who they wanted on the lottery board, and had no interest in following the proper parliamentary process, or appointing based on merit. The committee agreed to a list of 16 criteria which needed to be met for selection, such as "experience in keeping senior managers accountable" and "skills to analyse reports critically". We are not convinced that these criteria were met in the candidates, particularly because only two of the MPs - including the DA's representative on the committee - had actually attended all the interviews of candidates. The Board has been beset by poor management and the failure to properly distribute funds. In response to a parliamentary question posed by the DA, the DTI revealed that the National Lotteries Board and National Lotteries Distribution Trust Fund have failed dismally in executing their duties - in 2008/09 alone, R 2.2 billion worth of approved funding applications from charities have not been paid out, and for the 2007/08 financial year, of the 8,375 applications sent, a full 5,101 were not processed. This means that 60.9 per cent of the applications were not even looked at, and R 1.8 billion worth of approved funds were not paid to the applicants in that year. The situation is now extremely serious, with the amount of unpaid approved funds having increased by 21.8 per cent this year, and the approved allocations that have not been paid out over the past four years totalling a staggering R 6.9 billion. So it is essential that we have the best people in place to manage these funds, but instead the ANC has made it clear that they are not interested in appointing based on merit. In addition to this, the DA is in possession of legal opinion from Parliamentary legal services which shows that a previous board member, George Negota, served beyond his legally mandated terms of office. The document demonstrates that the previous Minister of Trade and Industry, Mandisi Mpahlwa, acted ultra vires in extending his membership. This shows a complete disregard for the law and due process, a disregard which has manifested in a much larger degree in the poor management of fund distribution. A copy of this document is available upon request.