Former lottery boss delays forfeiture of assets worth millions

A court challenge by former National Lotteries Commission (NLC) chair Alfred Nevhutanda has delayed the forfeiture of millions of rand in assets by the state.

Nevhutanda is challenging the legality of the proclamation giving the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) the powers to investigate the affairs of the commission.

Included in the assets, being preserved as “proceeds of crime”, are a R27m Pretoria mansion allegedly owned by Nevhatunda, bought with lottery funds. In total, the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) has preserved assets worth more than R344m, including other properties, luxury vehicles and two Ocean Basket franchises owned by people implicated in the plundering of lottery funds.

In an order handed down on September 5, Pretoria high court judge Nelisa Mali, who was dealing with an application brought by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) for the final forfeiture of the assets to the state, postponed the matter to an undetermined date.

This was to allow for the final determination of Nevhutanda’s application.

Mali ordered the NPA to pay punitive costs.

In his application, Nevhutanda challenges the proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in October 2020, which gave the SIU the go-head to investigate the commission’s affairs.

He wants it to be declared unlawful because the NLC is not an organ of state, nor does it deal with public money, which, he says, are prerequisites for authority under the SIU Act.

Further, he said the proclamation was too broad, giving the SIU the power to “go on a fishing expedition, permitting it to turn over any stone to its heart’s content”.

The president has put up the written record of the decision. Further affidavits, including from the government respondents, still have to be filed.

“The NLC is also not a state institution. The state has no financial interest in it. It cannot be defined as a public entity over which the SIU has jurisdiction,” he says.

He said if he was correct and his application succeeded, then any preservation orders granted because of the SIU investigation, would be nullified.

GroundUp