INLSA

Members of various NGOs protest outside the National Lotteries Board offices. Photo: Phill Magakoe

The National Lotteries Board (NLB) has challenged NGOs and other organisations which protested at its offices on Friday to produce evidence of any corruption or irregularities at the board.

This after nearly 200 members of various NGOs marched to its offices to hand in a memorandum about their grievances with the NLB.

They have called for a forensic audit into the financial affairs of the body and the awarding of grants to organisations they claim are well-connected with NLB officials.

NLB chairman Professor Alfred Nevhutanda received the memorandum from the protesters and said the board was willing to investigate any wrongdoing if they were furnished with information to support these claims.

Nevhutanda said though the recent audit report by Auditor-General (A-G), Terence Nombembe had highlighted certain irregular expenditures at the organisation, he had not called for a forensic audit.

“We must be clear what the audit report they are calling for means, because we are a public entity and we are audited internally and by the A-G. (That) report highlighted a lot of factors but it never called for any forensic audit to be undertaken,” he said.

According to Nevhutanda, the lottery had allocated a total of R15.3 billion to more than 15 000 beneficiary organisations across the country since its inception in 2000, with R12.7bn of this already paid and R2.6bn to be paid on receipt of progress reports.

But this is unlikely to change the stance of NGOs who believe that the NLB is not fulfilling its mandate to support organisations in need of funding. Many protesters carried posters calling for transparency in the awarding of the grants to various organisations, saying many had been forced to shut down because of the lack of funding.

Director of the Catholic Institute of Education, Mark Potterton, said he hoped the march would help raise the plight of many NGOs which were desperate for funding.

Potterton said the institute, which deals with young people in education matters, had its application turned down by the board as they were not first-time applicants, but said this was not a sufficient reason to decline an application.

“When an application is turned down there is an appeal process, but that process must be improved drastically because it is not working properly,” said Potterton.

He said the lack of funding forced the organisation to cut down staff and its operations in areas like Soweto, Joburg and various rural areas around the country.

Tania Otto, operations manager for Women and Men Against Child Abuse, said they had stopped depending on the NLB for funding as the board had proved unreliable.

“We raise funds through other means because you cannot rely on the NLB for funding. We know of organisations which have closed down because of lack of funding from the board and we cannot afford to do the same. (We need) a forensic audit of how funding is distributed, as it is clear that many organisation fail to get funding,” said Otto. - Pretoria News