{"id":259051,"date":"2023-05-04T14:13:33","date_gmt":"2023-05-04T12:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lotteries-commission-on-ethics\/"},"modified":"2023-05-04T14:13:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T12:13:33","slug":"company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"Company made millions advising corruption-riddled Lottery on ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Third%20Party\/anticorruptionnlcadvertorial2.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">From left to right: Nompumelelo Nene of the NLC, Janette Minnaar of ProEthics, Kevin Malunga and Aldrin Sampear at an anti-corruption conference sponsored by the NLC. This photo is from an advertorial published in Sunday World. Copied as fair use<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ProEthics was paid millions of rands by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) for ethics-related interventions at a time that the NLC was overwhelmed with allegations of corruption.<\/li>\n<li>The NLC has since been instructed to suspend the company\u2019s services and stop payments to it.<\/li>\n<li>The payments to ProEthics are to be investigated by a new forensic panel that the NLC is currently setting up.<\/li>\n<li>ProEthics says its services were provided \u201cethically and professionally\u201d. It has also implied that it will take legal action against GroundUp and this reporter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A company that consults to government and big business on ethics billed the NLC more than R28-million for media monitoring and ethics-related \u201cinterventions\u201d at a time when the NLC was overwhelmed with allegations of corruption, fraud and conflicts of interest.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Of the payments to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proethics.co.za\/\">ProEthics<\/a> between 2019 and 2022, almost R6.3-million was for \u201cethics interventions\u201d. At the time, the NLC was the subject of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/topic\/lotto\/\">damning revelations by GroundUp<\/a> about corruption.<\/p>\n<p>ProEthics was also paid over R1.74-million for \u201cEthics Media Monitoring\u201d during the same period, consisting of payments of R364.192 in July 2022, R325,887 in August 2022 and R1,053,366 in June 2021.<\/p>\n<p>The NLC also paid over R600,000 to several companies to monitor reporting about the NLC in print, on radio and TV and on social media, and to monitor the performance of advertising and paid-for advertorials, according to an October 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/documents\/payments_to_service_providers.pdf\">written reply<\/a> to Parliament\u2019s Trade, Industry and Competition portfolio committee. The information was supplied in response to a question by Democratic Alliance MP Mat Cuthbert requesting details of \u201cNLC communications, media and marketing services contracts\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Though the payments to ProEthics in 2021 and 2022 fall within the same time period as the payments revealed in Parliament, these payments are not included in the NLC\u2019s parliamentary response.<\/p>\n<p>Just over a month after he was appointed acting NLC commissioner on 1 September 2022, Lionel October, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/documents\/forensic_investigation.png\">instructed<\/a> company secretary <a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/adv-nompumelelo-nene-fcis-16133520\/?originalSubdomain=za\">Nompumelelo Nene<\/a> to stop using ProEthics and to suspend any outstanding payments to the company. Nene is currently on suspension pending a disciplinary hearing, which is expected to begin soon. October was recently appointed to the NLC board.<\/p>\n<p>In the memo, headed \u201cForensic investigation &#8211; ProEthics\u201d, October wrote: \u201cPlease be advised that all services and payments to the above service provider should be suspended until further notice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The payments to ProEthics are among several to be investigated by a new forensic panel that the NLC is setting up, according to a source with knowledge of what is being planned. It has also been flagged by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/special-investigating-unit-to-ask-president-ramaphosa-to-extend-its-lottery-probe\/\">applied to President Cyril Ramaphosa<\/a> to extend its mandate to allow it to probe payments to NLC service providers as well as grants by the NLC.<\/p>\n<p>ProEthics also attracted the attention of the Auditor General (AG), which flagged at least one payment of R2,443,426 to ProEthics by the NLC, for failing to obtain three quotes as required by the National Treasury.<\/p>\n<p>Responding to detailed questions, ProEthics founding director Janette Minnar said she was unable to give details of the payments and the work done for the NLC because of a \u201cconfidentiality clause\u201d they had signed.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe SLA (service level agreement) between ProEthics and the NLC contained a confidentiality clause; all information regarding material, costs, and service providers should therefore be obtained directly from the NLC,\u201d she said in an email.<\/p>\n<p>She said ProEthics \u201cwas placed on an NLC panel of service providers of the NLC following a proper tender process and an SLA was signed. Appointment on projects was done through a thorough RFQ (request for quote) process and all services were rendered ethically and professionally.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn rendering our services, we aim to assist our clients to build a culture of integrity. Where the project required services outside our scope of expertise the NLC appointed service providers from their panel to assist in the particular project,\u201d Minaar said.<\/p>\n<p>She warned: \u201c\u2026 that should any defamatory statement be published or included in any press release we shall take all the necessary steps to hold you personally and GroundUp liable\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>And, in a subsequent email, Minnaar added: \u201cWe again stress that our rights are reserved in toto.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NLC Commissioner Jodi Scholtz, without commenting specifically on ProEthics, said: \u201cThe NLC has received a draft report about some procurement irregularities and is studying that to determine the best course of action.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>What ProEthics was paid for<\/h2>\n<p>GroundUp has seen a list of payments made to ProEthics between 2019 and 2022 totalling over R28.4-million. Besides the payments for media monitoring and \u201cethics interventions\u201d, ProEthics was also paid by the NLC for a variety of other services, including:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cConflict of interest and \u201cconflict of interest vetting\u201d: almost R4.9-million;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cMental Health Day\u201d over R2.9-million;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEthics video\u201d: almost R1.1-million;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEthics intervention: International Fraud Awareness Week\u201d: R2.4-million;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cInternational Fraud Week &#8211; Virtual Conference\u201d: over R2.8-million;<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEthics Risk Assessment\u201d: R1.7-million; and<\/li>\n<li>\u201cEthics training\u201d: R35,850.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>ProEthics states on its website that it is currently on the NLC\u2019s \u201cCorporate governance panel for the NLC ethics office and secretariat\u201d. It has an extensive list of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/documents\/proethics_work_done_for_nlc.png\">work it has done for the NLC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>ProEthics does <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/documents\/proethics_clients.pdf\">extensive ethics consulting work and training<\/a> for government, state entities and big business. Besides the NLC, ProEthics clients include the Auditor-General, the Land Bank, the office of the Gauteng Premier, The Office of the Ombud for Financial Services Providers, The Public Investment Corporation, the Reserve Bank, Parliament and the Road Accident Fund. The company has also consulted on ethics, and provided ethics training, to a variety of blue chip companies and corporations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.proethics.co.za\/about\/#background\">Founded in 2014<\/a>, ProEthics has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.proethics.co.za\/about\/#:~:text=In%20August%202014%2C%20Janette%20founded,the%20private%20and%20public%20sectors\">two directors<\/a>, Janette Minnaar and Simon\u00e9 van Helsdingen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt ProEthics, we strive to live up to the highest standards of ethical behaviour and professionalism,\u201d the company says on its website. \u201cWe will not compromise our core values of integrity, excellence and responsibility. We do what we say and we keep our promises. Our personal and corporate integrity are our key drivers to deliver excellent service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt ProEthics we promote professional ethics and business integrity. We empower our clients to fight dishonest business practices and prevent losses resulting from crime and irregularities, by promoting an ethical culture and responsible organisational governance.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are committed to combat economic crime and harmful business practices that could hurt the innocent, destroy profit and damage quality service delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Minnaar addressed a <a href=\"https:\/\/mg.co.za\/special-reports\/2021-04-01-national-lotteries-commission\/\">virtual conference on anti-corruption and integrity<\/a> organised by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2021. The NLC was a key sponsor of the event and several of its executives featured on panels.<\/p>\n<p>Minnaar told the conference, which was streamed live from Pretoria, that \u201cthe NLC is working hard to ensure that the organisation roots out fraud and corruption, which impact negatively on the organisation\u2019s operations.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Highlighting five main steps to apply in the fight against corruption, Minnaar said it was \u201ccrucial to understand how rogues can be dealt with when they get involved in illegal activities.<\/p>\n<p>In fighting corruption, there should be prevention, detection, investigation, reporting and prosecution as key factors that can eradicate the rot that is consuming the country, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is a duty on persons who hold a position of authority or who knew or ought reasonably to have known or suspected that any person has committed an offence in terms of the act or theft, fraud, extortion, forgery or uttering involving more than R100,000 to report it to the police,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>But far from reporting corruption, the previous executive and board of the NLC took extraordinary steps to hide it, hurling legal threats at GroundUp, members of its own staff who blew the whistle on corruption, and anyone they perceived as critical of the Commission.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From left to right: Nompumelelo Nene of the NLC, Janette Minnaar of ProEthics, Kevin Malunga and Aldrin Sampear at an anti-corruption conference sponsored by the NLC. This photo is from an advertorial published in Sunday World. Copied as fair use ProEthics was paid millions of rands by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) for ethics-related interventions [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259052,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-259051","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/company-made-millions-advising-corruption-riddled-lottery-on-ethics.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259051","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=259051"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/259051\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/259052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=259051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=259051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=259051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}