The shortlist of bidders for the lucrative national lottery licence makes for an interesting read, with many of the participants linked to the ANC, directly or indirectly.
One of the shortlisted bidders is Thebe Investment Corporation, half owned by Batho Batho Trust, which according to declarations made to the IEC has donated R60m to the ANC since 2021.
Batho Batho Trust was founded by ANC leaders in 1992.
JSE-listed Hosken Consolidated Investments (HCI) has also thrown its name in the hat to win the lucrative tender, said to be more than R80bn.
HCI is run by trade unionist turned-businessman Johnny Copelyn, who was one of the businesspeople who donated to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s CR17 campaign for the ANC presidency.
HCI is majority owned by the SA Clothing and Textile Workers’ Union (Sactwu), an affiliate of Cosatu, which is in alliance with the ANC.
Businessperson Sandile Zungu’s consortium Goldrush is also in the running to win the licence to operate the national lottery. Zungu in 2022 made a bid to chair the ANC’s biggest province, KwaZulu-Natal, eventually dropping out of the race.
Ithuba, the current licence holder, is also seeking renewal of the contract, which it was awarded in 2015. Its contract was set to lapse at end-May but has been extended to May 31 2025 due to delays in initiating the tender process.
If Ithuba succeeds in retaining the licence to operate the national lottery, which generates revenue on behalf of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC), it would be the first company to do so since the award of the first licence in the late 1990s.
Two-year delay
Previous operators Uthingo and Gidani failed to retain their licences for a second term.
The race to win the country’s fourth national lottery licence began a year ago, after a two-year delay, when the department of trade, industry & competition published a request for proposals (RFP) for the fourth licence to operate the lottery.
Other shortlisted entities are Umbulalelo Consortium, led by Afrirent Holdings; and Giya Games.
Corruption Watch’s executive director, Karam Singh, called for a transparent adjudication of the tender.
“It is concerning that possible politically exposed persons are bidding for this tender. Given the previous NLC corruption, it’s important that this tender is run in a completely transparent and above-board manner,” Singh said.
Mmusi Maimane, leader of Build One SA, said the organisation was concerned that the lottery licence was being “captured”.
“Thebe is also closely associated with Batho Batho Trust, an ANC financial machinery. The bid will ultimately, post adjudication, be decided upon by an ANC minister, Parks Tau,” Maimane said.
“For over four years now HCI was viewed as one of the front-runners in the bid. The politically linked Johnny Copelyn and Yunis Shaik [HCI director] were not only rubbing shoulders with the ANC through funding and other means, they are also ‘brothers’ of the then-minister [Ebrahim Patel] under whom the RFP was finalised, after numerous postponements. I mention ‘brother’ because in his book Maverick Insider Copelyn defines former minister Patel as his brother,” he said.
“As for Goldrush, Sandile Zungu abandoned his candidature of the KZN ANC chairpersonship at the eleventh hour … his links with the ANC needs no political scientist to spot it.”
Patel, who did not avail himself for a cabinet post after May’s general election served as Copelyn’s deputy when the HCI CEO was secretary-general of Sactwu, before eventually succeeding him in the early 90s.
The department of trade, industry & competition and the NLC did not respond to a request to comment on their policy over politically exposed persons who bid for state tenders.
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