The Molteno Institute for Language and Literacy has announced that it is taking the National Lottery to court over claims of corruption in the reversal of a decision to award R20 million per year to the non-governmental organisation (NGO). This comes as just last Friday, hundreds of people representing NGOs took part in a protest march accusing the National Lottery of unfair treatment.

Molteno’s CEO Masennya Dikotla says the funding award was made in June and withdrawn in August, with the National Lottery claiming budgetary constraints. “We seriously doubt the truth of this, as the award was made and withdrawn in the space of a couple of months within the same financial year. We are also particularly suspicious considering the Supreme Court judgment of September 2011 that stated the National Lottery had underspent by R6 billion!”

Since August last year, Dikotla says the National Lottery has repeatedly refused to supply any information - such as minutes of meetings or financial statements - to support its claims of a lack of budget.

Dikotla says since August, Molteno has tried to engage with the National Lottery in a number of ways, all of which have proven unsatisfactory.
“We’re therefore very grateful that law firm Adams & Adams (and other funding partners) has agreed to represent us and to contribute to the legal costs that are being incurred.” says Dikotla.

“As a statutory body the Lotteries Board may only take decisions in terms of the Lotteries Act. The Act provides that only the Minister may withdraw funds that have been allocated, and then only on very limited grounds none of which apply in the current circumstances”, notes Adams & Adams partner, Jac Marais.

“We suspect that there are other NGO’s whose grants may also have been illegally withdrawn” adds Marais.

Additional reasons for the withdrawal of a grant include illegal activity by the organisation concerned. “However, before the grant was awarded to us, National Lottery officials visited our offices and thoroughly inspected our operation and our books,” adds Dikotla. “It’s at this point that they made it clear that they were extremely satisfied with the way we were doing things.”

The R20 million grant was to have been spent by Molteno to further its literacy programs, as well as to make donations of books to community centres around the country.

Issued on behalf of Adams & Adams by Crayon, contact Megan Larter 083 605 8859 for more information.

Jac Marais – Partner
Tel: 012 432 6356