Somebody said ”from Tsotsi star, to SA Lottery Tsotsi” and we couldn’t help but burst into laughter. Terry Pheto, who was a lead actress in an Oscar-winning feature film, Tsotsi, and eight other people, including two lawyers, an accountant, a hotel group CEO and a former commissioner of the NLC, are being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in a multimillion-rand fraud scheme, which allegedly saw them obtaining properties through money fraudulently acquired from the NLC.
Tsotsi and Bold and the Beautiful star Terry Pheto’s three-storey home was built using R3-million of lottery grant money meant for an “initiation programme”.
The house has been attached, it was revealed on Friday, after the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) went to court to freeze various assets implicated in fraud involving millions in National Lotteries Commission (NLC) grants.
Pheto’s home money came from a R20.2-million grant given by the NLC to a dodgy non-profit organisation, Zibsimode. The house is in upmarket Bryanston.
Deny, Deny, Deny!
Pheto issued a statement on Twitter over the weekend denying that she had benefited from Lottery funds. “I deny any involvement in the alleged scheme. I also had no prior knowledge of an application to obtain a preservation order against me,” she said.
Pheto said she would “cooperate fully with this investigation in an open and transparent manner”.
Zibsimode, a shelf company, was purchased on 9 May 2017. The company was then awarded two grants in rapid succession: R16.2-million on 30 May 2017, just 21 days after new directors were appointed, and a further R4-million on 6 July 2017.
A second luxury house in Bryanston, belonging to Upbrand Properties, which has been at the heart of the looting of millions of rands from the Lottery, was also included in the preservation order.
Upbrand is closely linked to former National Lotteries Commission Chief Operating Officer Phillemon Letwaba and members of his family
Cabinet minister Fikile Mbalula and his wife initially made a R5.6-million cash offer for the home. But they dropped out and the house was then bought by Upbrand, with an associate of Mbalula’s acting as the middleman, on identical terms to those that the couple had offered.
The Bryanston homes are two of nine properties, including luxury houses and a farm, frozen after a secret application by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was granted. The application was heard by Gauteng division Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba in his chambers last Friday morning.
Also frozen were two Ocean Basket franchises and a farm belonging to dodgy Pretoria lawyer Lesley Ramulifho, whose non-profits he controls have benefited from at least R60-million in Lottery grants. A top-of-the-range BMW 420i belonging to former NLC Chief Operating Officer Phillemon Letwaba was also included in the order.
In total, the assets that were frozen were valued at over R25-million, according to a statement issued by the SIU. Several of the frozen properties are linked to Letwaba, a source with knowledge of the matter told GroundUp.
Among the other properties seized were the North West golf estate home of former NLC Commissioner Thabang Mampane, which was bought with Lottery money. Also frozen by the court was the luxury Pretoria “country estate” home of Letwaba’s wife, who also benefited from Lottery funds.
Advocate Andy Mothibi, the head of the SIU, told the Trade, Industry and Competition Parliamentary Portfolio Committee in September that his unit was investigating over R1.4-billion in dodgy Lottery grants.
Minister Ebrahim Patel told the committee meeting that the “syndicates responsible for looting public [Lottery] funds were able to rely on a network of professional firms that enabled the monies to be redirected”, and that these syndicates had used “sophisticated methods to cover up their actions and deflect attention”.
Lawyers had helped facilitate the looting, he said, and both Patel and the SIU said that these lawyers would be reported to their professional bodies for action to be taken, including possible disbarment.
The order was granted to the NPA’s Assets Forfeiture Unit (AFU), based on investigations by the SIU, which has been probing Lottery corruption ever since President Cyril Ramaphosa signed a proclamation in November 2020 authorising the investigation.
The AFU became involved after Willie Hofmeyr, a former head of the unit and now an NLC board member, pushed for them to join the investigation. The SIU is only mandated to recover money lost through corruption, while the AFU has prosecutorial powers.
“The next step will be to apply for a forfeiture order,” NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said in a media statement. “Once a forfeiture order is granted, the properties will be sold at public auction, and proceeds returned to the NLC.”
Mahanjana said that Lottery grants were used to buy luxury properties “for the benefit of employees of the NLC and members of the non-profit organisations and/or their family members/friends.”
“In most instances, the properties were registered in the names of the entities and not in the name of private individuals. Some entities masqueraded as construction companies but did not do construction (or very little) and were effectively used as money laundering vehicles to receive kickbacks from non-profit organisations who received grants from the NLC,” she said.
GroundUp has reliably learned that the SIU has “made criminal referrals” to the NPA involving Letwaba, Ramulifho, Mampane, Nevhutanda, former board member William Huma, who benefited hugely from Lottery grants, and Mashudu Shandukani, who is included in Friday’s order, and his wife, Pretty. Shandukani’s company was the main contractor on a Lottery-funded project to build a school in Limpopo, where millions of rands were misappropriated.
Main Image: Mozaik