Luxury properties seized in latest Lottery crackdown

Two luxury homes, a property in an upmarket estate, a poultry farm and a Hilux SUV, all allegedly bought with funds siphoned from lottery grants, have been frozen by a preservation order granted by the High Court in Pretoria.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and the Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) were granted the orders after an ex parte (without the other parties present) hearing by Gauteng High Court Judge Aubrey Ledwaba on 24 July 2024. This was only made public on Wednesday.

The SIU, which does not have prosecutorial powers and is only mandated to recover state funds misappropriated through corruption, has handed the dockets of its investigations into all these grants, as well as many others, to the Hawks to investigate.

But while millions in misappropriated properties, cars and other assets have been frozen because of the SIU’s investigations, there is growing frustration at the slow pace of investigations by both the SAPS and the Hawks into the looting of the lottery, and prosecutions by the National Prosecuting Authority, of those involved.

So far only one person has been successfully prosecuted and two men have appeared in court in connection with misappropriated lottery funds.

The latest order has frozen:

• a luxury home in Ekurhuleni co-owned by Ngwedzeni Moudy Mudzielwana and Phindile Garish Mudzielwana;
• a property in Sable Hills in Pretoria registered to the Malwandla Siweya Family Trust, represented by trustee Malwandla Solly Siweya;
• a poultry farm in Midvaal registered in the name of Dimakatso Pheto, sister of Tsotsi actor Terry Pheto;
• a house in Louis Trichardt registered to Collin Mukondeleli Tshisimba; and
• a Toyota Hilux registered to Preldon Construction (Pty) Ltd, represented by Pretty Shandukani.

DODGY BOREHOLE GRANT 

Muzielwana’s home was bought using funds from a multimillion-rand grant meant to install 200 boreholes in drought-stricken villages across South Africa.

His newly established non-profit company, Tshikovha Graduate Academy, was granted a R55-million grant by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) in 2016 to install the boreholes. Before the NLC’s funds landed, there was only R46.73 in Tshikovha’s bank account.

Konani Pfunzo Comprehensive Learning Centre, a Limpopo school, with just 46 learners, acted as a conduit for the funds. The grant application was signed by Moudy Mudzielwana and co-signed by Collin Tshisimba, who has been implicated in several other dodgy lottery grants.

Once the lottery money landed, Tshikovha made two deposits, of R4.8-million and R4.5-million, to Redtaq a company related to former NLC chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba. GroundUp has reported how Redtaq then paid R1-million to a dealership towards a Rolls Royce for former Lottery chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda.

Audit firm SkX Protiviti, which was commissioned by the NLC to investigate the grant, said they had been unable to reconcile how the money was spent as “Konani and Tshikovha failed to provide us with their bank statements and financial records.”

“The beneficiary and his contractor indicated that they were not willing to consult with us,” SkX said in its report, adding that no background checks or the verification of any documents had been done by the NLC.

When SkX investigators visited the borehole sites, they could not locate eight of them using co-ordinates provided by the NLC.

Six boreholes had never had pumps fitted and “therefore were not accessible for usage by the public”, while two were installed on private property. The coordinates for one borehole “indicated that it was in a municipal building” while yet another was located on a farm and had been drilled over ten years before the NLC project.

SOLLY SIWEYA

Siweya’s house was frozen in connection with a R30-million grant for the South African Sports Association for the Intellectually Impaired (SASA-II), a sports body for intellectually impaired athletes, to host a Bloemfontein event.

Soon after the money landed, SASA-II transferred R3.5-million in two payments to Ironbridge Travelling Agency, which is associated with Phillemon Letwaba.

Ironbridge, in turn, transferred R2-million to Ndzhuku Trading, in which Siweya was one of two directors. Ndzhuku then transferred the money to another of its accounts, and then paid R350,000 to transferring attorneys handling the sale of a property registered to the Malwandla Siweya Family Trust, in Sable Hills in Pretoria.

GroundUp has reported on other dodgy lottery grants involving Siweya, including an R80-million grant supposedly to support Durban’s (failed) attempt to host the Commonwealth Games.

He also acted as an intermediary in the purchase of a house in Bryanston by Upbrand Properties, a company closely linked to Letwaba and his brother, Joe. ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula and his wife originally put in a cash offer for R5.6-million on the house, but they withdrew and an identical cash offer was then submitted by Upbrand which bought the house. The minister lived in it briefly before suddenly moving out.

Mbalula and Letwaba were good friends at one stage but then fell out. Letwaba’s wife and brother both claimed in affidavits when the preservation order was contested that R3-million paid towards the purchase of the house in Bryanston was a loan to Mbalula.

CHICKEN FARM

Part of a R23.7-million grant to Nunnovation Africa Foundation to build a “boxing arena” in Storms River was used to buy a chicken farm in Midvaal farm for Dimakatso Terry, the sister of Tsotsi actor Moitheri “Terry” Pheto. Nunnovation had no track record in construction.

Pheto’s luxury home in Bryanston, which was bought using lottery funds, was frozen by the SIU and subsequently sold in March last year. The offer to purchase the farm for R850,000 was signed by former NLC board chairperson Alfred Nevhutanda.

HOUSES ON THE LOTTERY

A house frozen in Louis Trichardt by the preservation order is one of several owned by Collins Tshisimba and his wife, Fulufhelo Promise Kharivhe, that are subject to preservation orders.

The SIU believes Tshisimba is part of “a syndicate that has been consistently defrauding the NLC” through various non-profit organisations.

The SIU says he was part of a group of people who siphoned off hundreds of millions of rands from lottery grants between 2016 and 2019, money that was meant to uplift poor people and communities.

HILUX

This article first appeared on GroundUp. Read the original article here.