Former lottery boss ordered to pay punitive legal costs to journalist

Phillemon Letwaba, the former COO of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) was ordered to pay punitive legal costs to journalist Raymond Joseph for ignoring deadlines to file papers in a legal action in which Joseph is suing him for defamation.

Western Cape High Court Judge James Lekuleni granted the costs order this week after Letwaba’s lawyers sought an adjournment, claiming he had appointed new attorneys who knew nothing about the case.

Joseph’s advocate, Deneys van Reenen, said a court order granted in November last year, which gave Letwaba 10 days to file a discovery affidavit, had been served on both Letwaba personally and his new attorneys that same month.

After this was ignored, Joseph’s lawyers set the matter down for hearing before Lekuleni this week, asking for default judgment against Letwaba for R600,000 for impairment of dignity and reputation.

Advocate Thato Rakatane, for Letwaba, asked the court for an indulgence and an opportunity to oppose judgment being granted.

The judge put Letwaba on terms to file his discovery affidavit in compliance with the November order by March 13. He also adjourned the matter to April 11 and ordered Letwaba to pay Joseph’s costs on an attorney and client scale.

Joseph is a freelancer with the GroundUp news agency who has written more than 100 articles exposing corruption in the NLC.

Joseph, in his court application, says Letwaba defamed him during an interview on Newzroom Afrika, alleging that he and his family had benefited from lottery money.

Letwaba claims Joseph was “embittered” because the commission had put a stop to his funding. Joseph denies this, and says Letwaba defamed him.

In his summons, served in November 2021, Joseph has included a transcript of the interview with journalist Stephen Grootes in which Letwaba claimed that he had been targeted by Joseph for five years “just because one individual who is the major beneficiary of the NLC decided to declare war against the NLC”.

Letwaba claimed that more than 12 organisations linked to Joseph were no longer receiving lottery funds and suggested the journalist was attacking him because of that.

Joseph says neither he nor any of his family members had ever applied for or received a lottery grant, the allegations were untrue, and they were designed to inform the public that he could not be believed.

“They were understood by the reasonable audience to mean that I knowingly breached journalistic ethics, was a vengeful and malicious journalist, and had embarked on an untruthful campaign against him and the commission,” he said.

Letwaba, at the last minute, filed a notice to defend the summons, arguing that his utterances were true and in the public interest. He then missed deadlines to file further papers and documents disclosing the basis of his defence.

Joseph, in an affidavit which came before Judge Lekuleni, accuses Letwaba of using “every possible measure to delay the litigation” and of being “extremely reluctant” to answer his claims.

He said while the matter dragged on, his livelihood was at stake because it was dependent on his reputation as an honest and unbiased journalist.

“Being a veteran journalist, I have always regarded myself as tough and willing to take some abuse. However, the brazen accusations of dishonesty caused me extreme embarrassment and hurt,” Joseph said.

Letwaba is also suing GroundUp’s editor and Joseph for defamation. He issued summons in 2019, but the case appears to be at a standstill.

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