AG concerned about NLC's handling of grant funding

CAPE TOWN - The auditor-general (AG) says it remains concerned about the way in which the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) handles grant funding, despite slight improvements in its audit outcome over 2024.

On Tuesday, the office told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) that grant beneficiaries had also been found wanting and unable to properly account for how they’d spent the money they’d received.

The AG’s office has flagged three material irregularities worth R46 million for this financial year.

These include a failed sports complex project in Soweto and the incomplete construction of an old-age home in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN).

The NLC has received two successive years of qualified audits.

The AG's office said its own site visits had confirmed that the location of the intended Motheo sports complex in Soweto, for which the NLC paid out R6 million of a R9 million grant, was being used as a dumpsite.

Senior audit manager, Aphendule Matiyane, said the commission was failing to conduct proper feasibility studies for projects that were applying for funding.

"We also noted that the monitoring processes were haphazard and didn’t cover the entire value chain and the processes."

The AG’s office has also found that the contractor for a R26 million old age home in KZN abandoned the partially constructed structure, which showed building defects.

"In circumstances around infrastructure projects, they did not have the right skills and the capacity to be able to make those assessments."

The projects are already under investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).