The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) says its organisational turnaround strategy is under way and will be fully implemented over a six-year period.

The strategy includes modernisation and streamlining processes, stronger oversight mechanisms and built-in fraud prevention.

Addressing the media in Pretoria on Tuesday afternoon, NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz said they have been working hard on the strategy.

‘We have worked diligently to respond to the frustrations of our stakeholders around the long wait for funding, while ensuring that we build fraud-prevention into our processes, increase the efficiency and enhance the impact of our work through the development of a new grant application and management system,’ said Scholtz.

Scholtz announced the readiness of the commission’s reparative measures programme to address harm caused to individuals and communities by previous actions of maladministration and to rehabilitate the identified community infrastructure projects to their intended state.

While the
interactions with the affected parties would largely be behind closed doors, she said, a commitment was made to share milestones of the reparative measures publicly, with an emphasis that each community infrastructure project would be addressed based on the Special Investigative Unit (SIU) report, community engagement and other relevant reports.

The SIU was, in terms of Proclamation R32 of 2020, authorised by President Cyril Ramaphosa to investigate allegations of corruption and maladministration in the affairs of NLC and the conduct of NLC officials and to recover any financial losses suffered by the State.

The SIU said in February it had made eight criminal referrals to the National Prosecuting Unit and 11 disciplinary referrals to NLC officials.

The unit said the investigation in its totality is worth approximately R1.4 billion, which the State and the NLC have allegedly lost due to corruption at the organisation.

Grant funding processes

Scholtz touched on continuing enhancements to its grant funding
processes aimed at increasing efficiencies and improving the service experience of applicants and grantees.

This was alongside continuing engagements with the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition (the dtic) to facilitate the appointment of additional members for the Distributing Agencies in order to increase the pace of adjudications.

With the Call for Applications for 2024/25 intended to open at the tail end of 2024, the NLC announced the revival of Section 2A(3) of the Lotteries Act following the 2022 moratorium on what was then known as Proactive Funding.

Now renamed Research-Based Funding (RBF), and with a strengthened policy that ensures transparency at all stages that will mitigate the internal control deficiencies that existed under Proactive Funding, the RBF is to be launched with two critical programmes aimed at addressing pressing societal needs in South Africa – food security and primary health care.

The Eastern Cape province will serve as a pilot province.

Scholtz noted that while th
e Request for Proposals for the appointment of the Fourth National Lottery Operator was the subject of much interest, engagement with the public and media in that regard would only take place once the process had been concluded in its entirety by Trade, Industry and Competition Minister Parks Tau.

‘Our journey to restore trust and achieve operational excellence is just that – a journey and it requires agility. We have started from within, and the team’s dedication to our turnaround has been commendable so far.

‘We know that we have much to do, and notwithstanding the challenges we face, we are committed to achieving what we have set out to do.

‘The work is gaining momentum, and we fully intend to maintain it. We are delighted at the determination and positive energy of the team at the NLC,’ Scholtz said.

Source: South African Government News Agency