A court challenge by the former chairman of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) Alfred Nevhutanda has delayed the forfeiture of millions of rands in assets by the state.
Nevhutanda is challenging the legality of the proclamation giving the Special Investigating Unit the powers to investigate the affairs of the NLC.
Included in the assets, currently being preserved as “proceeds of crime”, are a R27-million Pretoria mansion allegedly owned by Nevhatunda, bought with Lottery funds. In total the Asset Forfeiture Unit has preserved assets worth more than R344-million, 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 5 September, 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 it to an undetermined date.
This was to allow for the final determination of Nevhutanda’s application.
Judge Mali ordered the NPA to pay punitive costs.
In his application, Nevhutanda is challenging the proclamation signed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in October 2020, which gave the Special Investigating Unit the go-head to investigate the NLC’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 says, the proclamation is 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 says if he is correct and his application succeeds then any preservation orders granted because of the SIU investigation, will be nullified.
