Nompumelo Nene, the suspended company secretary of the National Lotteries Commission, has lost again in court.
Suspended National Lotteries Commission (NLC) company secretary Nompumelo Nene has failed, in what was described as a “fishing expedition”, to get documents from the Auditor-General, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Competition, and the NLC.
In her application before Pretoria High Court Acting Judge Le Grange, Nene claimed she needs the documents for her review application in which she is seeking to set aside findings of irregular expenditure by the NLC under her watch, which led to her suspension in November 2022.
But Judge Le Grange has dismissed the application. He said he was tempted to order that she pay punitive costs, or even costs from her own pocket, but said it was too early in the review litigation process to do that.
GroundUp reported this week that Nene remains on full pay and has been paid out almost R5-million since her suspension.
Earlier this year, Nene launched urgent proceedings to stay the disciplinary proceedings against her. But this was dismissed and she was ordered to pay the costs personally.
In her review application she is seeking to set aside the Auditor-General reports for the financial years 2018 to 2020 which implicated her in misconduct relating to unauthorised expenditure on media services, accountants and auditors.
The matter before Judge Le Grange was an interlocutory application seeking to compel the production of the record of the decisions which led to her suspension.
Judge Le Grange said he doubted that Nene had legal standing to even bring the review application in her own name, but that was an issue which would be dealt with later.
He said that the main objection (of the government respondents), was that in terms of the rules of court (Rule 30A), the Auditor-General had already filed a comprehensive record of proceedings, that the application was nothing but a fishing expedition, and that it was clear from the list of documents that she sought that most were irrelevant to the review application.
Judge Le Grange said the Auditor-General had provided her with the record even before the review application had been filed.
“In my view, the applicant [Nene] appreciated that her “wish list” simply did not form part of the record of proceedings, but were rather documents which are extraneous to and which go beyond the record, to what she considered to be relevant to identify and prove the Auditor-General inconsistencies spanning the years.”
For this reason Nene had “skilfully” attempted to move away from Rule 30 to Rule 35, which provides for discovery of documents.
However, discovery could only be considered once the “contours of the dispute” had been drawn (when all the pleadings were in) and the relevancy of documentation could be determined.
In her affidavit, Nene said the dispute (in the review) was about the simple question of whether the Auditor-General consistently applied and interpreted audit standards and she wished, through the documents, to show there had been an “abrupt change” in stance, especially prior to 2018.
But Judge Le Grange said in a review the test was not inconsistency but rationality.
“The Auditor-General may, in answer, admit to having been inconsistent, which will leave the bulk of, if not all, of the listed documents now sought, totally irrelevant for the purpose of the review. Discovery is best left for after the close of the pleadings.”
Nene had also sought an order compelling the NLC to provide her with documentation which she had sought under the Promotion to Access to Information Act in October 2023.
Judge Le Grange said it was common cause that the NLC had failed to answer this request. This constituted a “deemed refusal” and the default position was that she had to follow internal appeal processes before she had the right to approach a court.
In dismissing her application, with costs, the judge said he had been requested by all the respondents to grant costs on a punitive scale and some had even suggested a personal cost order.
“I cannot say I have not been tempted due to her unreasonable persistence with the application, which may also have as a basis an ulterior purpose. I believe however, that I should not grant such an order at this early stage of the litigation, especially due to the fact that the applicant is an individual who does not have access to state funds, as the majority of the respondents do.”
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Hog Butcher
A British man on safari walks into a bar far out in the reaches of a game reserve in Southern Africa, he stays at the bar for a while shooting the shit with the bartender and drinking like a fish, he offer to buy the barkeep a round and since no one else is within 2km of their small oasis of liquor the barkeep obliges. The englishman goes off to the bathroom to have a good old go at the porcelain, he\’s back and ready for a few more whiskeys. He\’s just sat down when suddenly in the distance he hears a scream. He looks over his shoulder and dismisses it as nothing, he turns to the barkeep and orders a drink, takes a sip and hears the scream again. He looks at the barkeep who just shrugs it off. A minute or two later he and the barman hear it again and go outside to take a look. They see a lone figure running towards them screaming, he spots them and lets out a cry, RUN!!!!! HE\”S COMING!!!!!
The barkeep and the Englishman both look at the terrified bedraggled sight before them, and try to calm him down, but he\’s completely inconsolable. They give him water and finally manage to get a word out of him but he struggles free from their grasp and run away screaming.
A few minutes later the same thing happens with a whole group of men running in and screaming, he\’s coming, he\’s coming the barkeep grabs hold of one of the men as he tries to sprint past the bar and tries to get information out of him, again no response other than terrified gibberish.
The barkeep and his customer are starting to get worried, they start to pack up before another group of horrified natives run up to the bar most of them flee but one tries to hide behind the bar, the barkeep pulls out a shotgun and points it at the terrified man\’s face, finally managing to coax some words out of him. \”He\’s coming for us, Vernon Koekemoer is coming for us, we have to hide!!! We have to get out of here.\” He gets up and tries to run but the barkeep grabs him, feeling trapped in a panic he grabs the barkeeps shotgun and blows his own head off. The Englishman and the barkeep look at each other starting to really panic now.
They look out of the window and off in the distance they see a tornado coming towards the bar, at the bottom of the tornado they see the hugest beast of a man they have ever seen, as he gets closer they spot that he is riding a rhinocerous and using a crocodile as a riding whip, with each smack of the crocodile across the back of the rhino the louder is screams and the faster it runs, the tornado following it getting ever larger.
The 2 look at each other and start to fortify their position, they\’ve got a gun and they\’re waaay to drunk to run, so they start piling bar stool and tables and anything they can get their hands on to make sure they\’ll be safe when he arrives. They\’re not gonna make it, they can see the man slowing down his rhino, by now the crocodile is nothing but reptile paste on the bruised rump of the half dead rhino, the rhino drops down dead from exhaustion and crashes to the ground right outside the bar the tornado loses it\’s last breath in a cloud of dust as the huge man crashes his way through the make shift barricade and charges up towards the bar where the 2 men have taken shelter, he grabs a bottle of the hardest liquor on the shelf and down the entire litre in 1 gulp, he peers over the bar sobbing and sees the 2 defenders cowering down behind the crates of beer, they look up at the mans\’ face and he stares at them with a look of complete and utter hopelessness, he stares at them for a half second and half screams, half sobs, \”Oh my god what are you still doing here!!! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE NOW!!!! Vernon Koekemoer is coming!!!!\”