10 October 2024
Minister Parks Tau on the big screen in the Marks Building, Parliament, at a meeting of the trade and industry portfolio committee on Tuesday. Photo: Raymond Joseph
The minister responsible for the Lottery has made it clear that he will not be forced into making hasty decisions. This is despite coming under intense pressure to dissolve the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) board and fire the NLC commissioner.
Parks Tau, the Minister for Trade, Industry and Commerce (TIC) appeared before the parliamentary portfolio committee via its virtual platform on Tuesday.
His appearance followed weeks of pressure on him to act on allegations of corruption, nepotism, conflicts of interest, and discrimination against NLC staff.
In recent weeks there has been a flurry of news reports and correspondence making serious allegations about the NLC board and commissioner.
Other complaints were about the process currently underway to adjudicate the awarding of the next lottery licence, which is said to be at least R80-billion over eight years.
Tau said, “We have taken a decision that we should not necessarily respond to the public discourse. To the extent that the committee has raised questions, we have responded to the best of our ability to the matters raised.
“We … agree on the need to stabilise governance in all the [TIC] agencies, including the NLC. This is a process that is well underway.”
Tau said allegations by the committee of malfeasance and conflict of interest, including those involving the adjudication of the next Lottery licence, would be investigated.
He said he had “taken a view” to allow the NLC board, which oversees the licence bid, to “complete its processes”.
Tau said that he has “appointed agents” to review the recommendations that would be made on the awarding of the licence.
He said he had responded to issues raised in a letter from the committee’s chairperson. (See Tau’s full response here and the response by NLC Board chairperson Barney Pityana here.)
The Department of Trade, Industry and Commerce (DTIC) also reported back on its 2023/24 Annual Report and its 2024/25 first quarter performance. The reports included the performance of entities that fall under the department.
The Auditor-General also briefed the meeting on its audit outcomes for eight DTIC entities, including the NLC. Of these: five received unqualified audits, down from six last year; two had unqualified audits with findings; none received qualified audits with findings; and there is one outstanding audit – the NLC.
The NLC audit is outstanding “due to ongoing technical alignment discussions with the auditee,” the Auditor-General said, adding that its “anticipated” report sign-off date was 16 October.
“The quality of financial statements submitted for audit remains an area of concern for some of the entities. In the prior year, NLC and SABS had material misstatements in the financial statements submitted for audit.”
Pityana previously told the committee that the issues raised by the Auditor-General occurred during the tenure of the previous board and executive.
“In fact, the matters had a source way before the era of this board and management. But every effort was done to attend to the matter,” he said.
He added that disciplinary processes are underway.
Regarding this year’s delayed audit, Pityana said that “every effort is being done to attend to any issues that the Auditor-General has raised. I believe that the Auditor-General will attest to the professional cooperation they have received from our finance team”.
A major issue raised by MPs was the number of key executive and board vacancies at DTIC entities.