Corruption-Riddled Lottery Projects Incomplete Despite Promised R65-Million

The Maila village old-age home: Looters have made off with everything of value, leaving only a roofless, rotting skeleton.

• R65-million was allocated over three years ago to complete unfinished facilities that include old-age homes and drug rehabs.
• But only one of 13 projects, a GBV and disability centre, has opened its doors.
• Construction at these projects ground to a halt after the hundreds of millions of rands allocated to build them were looted.
• One old-age home in the Free State is being used as student accommodation, while another in KZN is being used for storage by a company building RDP homes in the area.
• Another old-age home in Mpumalanga is being steadily looted, but the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) says it is unable to pay for security to protect the property.
• The NLC says it has established a Community Infrastructure Reparations Process that has appointed a panel of “multidisciplinary engineering service providers” to decide on the future of these projects.

More than three years after the NLC said it had allocated R65-million to incomplete Lottery-funded infrastructure projects, work has yet to begin to get them fit for purpose.

So far, none of the allocated funds has been disbursed for construction work at the affected projects, the NLC told GroundUp.

All the affected projects, from which hundreds of millions of rand were looted, are under investigation by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). Most are also being investigated by the Hawks or the police.

Some of the looted grants date as far back as 2017. In many cases, the NLC provided further grants without first verifying the progress made or how the funds had been spent.

We recently asked the NLC about progress in completing 13 multimillion-rand lottery-funded projects.

Of these projects, only one, the Hlayisani Centre of Hope, a GBV and disability centre in Kabokweni, Mpumalanga, is operational and being used for its intended purpose. The centre received lottery grants totalling almost R27.7-million between 2019 and 2021.

Another project, a lottery-funded old age home in Thaba Nchu in the Free State, is being used as student accommodation. The Southern African Youth Movement received R27.5-million in lottery funding to build the home.

The NLC said that it has initiated legal action “to prohibit the continued unauthorised commercial use of the NLC-funded immovable property”.

And, in the far north of KZN, an incomplete old-age home is being used as a storeroom by a contractor building RDP homes in the area. The NLC was unaware of the illegal use of the premises until we raised the issue. The NLC says it will take legal action to end the illegal use.

Panel appointed

The NLC said that a “core component” of its Community Infrastructure Reparations Process was “the establishment and appointment of a panel of multidisciplinary engineering service providers through a formal procurement process. This panel is tasked with conducting the necessary technical and feasibility assessments”.

The allocation of funds to specific projects would be determined by the outcomes of the reparations process, the NLC told GroundUp.

All future expenditures were contingent on “rigorous feasibility assessments conducted under the reparations process and the finalisation of the SIU process,” it said. “This ensures every rand spent is accountable and aligned with a viable, community-supported plan”.

When the R65-million was allocated in October 2022, former NLC spokesperson Ndivhuho Mafela told GroundUp that “the NLC took a decision to oversee the completion of these projects directly through its own panel of engineers”.

“The Special Investigating Unit was engaged on completion of the projects and did not oppose such action,” he said.

The NLC also previously shared a document with GroundUp containing details of the unfinished projects, how much they had already received in grants, and estimates of what it would cost to complete them.

In 2023, NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz, in a wide-ranging interview about progress in fixing the NLC after years of deep-rooted corruption, said that it had asked the Industrial Development Corporation to provide engineers to investigate abandoned or unfinished projects.

The intention, she said, was “to see what could be done to make them useful for the communities where these facilities are situated”.

Talk, little real action

Despite the NLC’s stated plans, very little appears to be happening on the ground to expedite the completion of the affected projects, some of which are deteriorating because of looting and exposure to the elements.

In some cases, unprotected, incomplete properties have been looted of fittings and building materials, while the NLC seemingly moves at a snail’s pace to decide on their fate.

An unfinished old age home in Maila village in rural Limpopo has been stripped by looters and damaged by exposure to the elements. Looters have made off with everything of value, leaving only a roofless, rotting skeleton.

Previously, the NLC said a decision had been taken to abandon the development.

But, in its latest response, the NLC said: “The NLC is now considering either scrapping the project or putting out a call for applications for the infrastructure’s completion. This will only be done once the community has been consulted.

A site visit in November 2024 confirmed that the infrastructure is only 30% complete and is in a poor state, the NLC said.

An old age home in Marapyane in Mpumalanga, which received almost R35-million from the NLC, is being systematically stripped by looters, despite efforts by community members to protect it.

The NLC says that it is legally unable to fund security to protect the property. It said the project is in a “reasonable state of completion and it is waiting for an engineering report” before it decides how to proceed.

Other unfinished projects include:

• An old age home in North West province, which is still incomplete, despite having received R28-million in lottery funding.
• An old age home in Kuruman in the Northern Cape, which received R28-million.
• A drug rehabilitation facility, also in Kuruman, received R34-million.
• An old-age home in Nelspruit, which received R28-million.
• A supposed boxing arena in Storms River in the Eastern Cape, which has received R36-million.
• A music academy in Soweto, which received R15-million from the lottery and R10-million from the government, but says it needs a further R28-million to complete, furnish and equip.
• A sports and entertainment centre in Soweto, where nothing was ever built, even though the NLC paid out R6-million of a R9-million grant.

In the case of many of the unfinished projects, the NLC gave an identical response to GroundUp’s questions, saying that they were “in a reasonable state of completion with high potential for collaboration and sustainable ownership that can be optimally utilised in the community”.

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