AMABHUNGANE: Gambling on secrecy: ‘Sock-puppet militia’ bites off more than it can chew in trying to silence investigations into lottery spend

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The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) is a ‘Goliath’, funding ‘worthy causes’ to the tune of about R1.3-billion annually. But when a couple of media ‘Davids’ started investigating just how worthy some of those causes were, a ragtag ‘astroturf army’ sprang up to make common cause with the NLC and its bid to keep beneficiaries secret. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but if the plan was to silence questions, then it has backfired badly.

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Thlaka questioned “who gave this institution the mandate to conduct this kind of investigation” – and countered with fulsome praise of the NLC and a plug for it to support his own organisation.Sangonet and the related SA NGO Coalition were once powerful voices for the nonprofit sector, but are a shadow of their former selves, with one senior ex-staffer alleging toSangonet receives funding from the NLC as does another non-profit run by Thlaka, Cyraspex.

Correspondence that emerged later shows the NLC was forced into escalating damage control with Patel, whose audit unit was unimpressed with the NLC’s deflections.for R600,000 and demanding the removal of six articles. It described Joseph’s conduct as “total anarchy that must be stopped” because he was “trampling on the rights of NLC beneficiaries by sharing highly confidential financial records with the public”.

It is not clear whether it receives funding from the NLC. Neither Jentile nor the organisation responded to emailed questions. Completing the circle, Sithathu is also a director of the Independent Beneficiaries Forum, which wrote to the minister in February.After its establishment, UCSA’s first order of business appears to have been to lobby in support of the NLC and against the publication of NLC beneficiaries.“We would like to address Mr Raymond Joseph openly and challenge him to produce evidence of his allegations through relevant authorities,” Jentile was reported as saying.

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