The public commitment by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) that it vetted people it appointed to the bid evaluation committee of the lucrative national lottery tender is increasingly coming unstuck.
Sizekhaya was last month appointed by minister of trade, industry & competition Parks Tau as the operator of the fourth national lottery licence — pipping seven other bidders.
Since then, the proximity of Sizekhaya to deputy president Paul Mashatile has come to light, with the constitution of the evaluation committee also raising questions about the fairness of the process.
The vetting or lack thereof of one of the evaluation committee members, Thiran Marimuthu, has also left the process open to scrutiny.
Marimuthu attended a 25th anniversary golf day of Goldrush (which owns half of Sizekhaya), in early November 2023.
The request for proposals for the tender was opened in August 2023. Sizekhaya told Business Day that Marimuthu was invited to the Goldrush event because of his role as acting CEO of the Gauteng Gambling Board (GGB) at the time, along with members of his executive committee. It said members of other provincial gambling boards and of the gaming fraternity were also invited.
“Goldrush does not have a personal or improper relationship with Mr Marimuthu,” Sizekhaya said.
However, GGB denied this, because at the time of the Goldrush event, Marimuthu was on suspension for at least eight months. “Authority or permission was not granted for Mr Marimuthu to represent the GGB as the acting CEO at the Goldrush event while on suspension,” the GGB said.
The GGB response suggests that Marimuthu attended the Goldrush festivities in his personal capacity, putting paid to Sizekhaya’s claims that no personal relationship exists.
Adding to the perceived conflict of interest and ties to Goldrush is that the GGB said its acting CEO at the time, Karabo Mbele, was not invited to the event.
In essence, Goldrush opted to invite a suspended acting CEO, ignoring the one occupying the office at the time of the event.
The NLC also opted to appoint Marimuthu despite his being on suspension with him seemingly passing the entity’s vetting process.
Marimuthu left the GGB in October 2024, when the NLC bid evaluation processes were concluded and the matter handed to Tau to make a final decision on a preferred bidder.
According to the NLC’s presentation to MPs last week, the work of the evaluation committee started in January 2024 and concluded in September.
Business Day reported last week that the chair of the bid evaluation committee, Andrew Mashifane, an accountant in 2023, admitted guilt to misconduct charges after the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors launched a probe into his conduct.
“The respondent, Mr Andrew Walter Mashifane, was the engagement partner of a holding company with numerous subsidiaries. He failed to appropriately address the impact on the group of material uncorrected misstatements identified during the audit of the company’s subsidiaries and holding company,” the regulatory board’s findings read.
Despite this finding, the NLC still saw fit to appoint him to chair the panel. Tintswalo Nkuna, NLC executive manager for regulatory compliance, told MPs the organisation resorted to roping in the services of recruitment agencies to supply it with “competent people” to serve on the evaluation committee.
“At the time we started sourcing the firms to conduct the evaluation process, the NLC was at a high risk exposure with negative media reports and the SIU investigations. As a result of that risk exposure, the firms that were approached were not willing to align themselves with the NLC,” Nkuna said.
The companies that were interested did not have the requisite experience, according to Nkuna.
“Following requests from firms to submit proposals, and that being unsuccessful, we sought to recruit the evaluation committee members and approached recruitment agencies who then submitted CVs of the persons they were of the view that they had required skills and competencies to do the evaluation.
“It was on this basis that on the review of the applications and CVs that were submitted there were interviews, followed by the vetting of the evaluation committee members and their subsequent appointment.”
According to the process outlined by Nkuna, the vetting process either missed or was comfortable with the appointments of Marimuthu and Mashifane.
Business Day has previously reported that Anne-Marie Pooley, who also sits on the bid adjudication committee, invested in an establishment in Pretoria, Route 515 Pub and Grill, which houses slots and gaming machines of Goldrush.
The transaction involving Pooley was concluded in March last year — just a month after the NLC received eight applications for the fourth licence to operate the lottery.
Sizekhaya said Pooley was not in a conflicted position.
“Goldrush has a customer-service provider relationship with Ms Pooley, who is the owner of an establishment in which Goldrush gaming machines/LPMs (limited payout machines) are located,” Sizekhaya said.
“Sizekhaya understands that the LPM machines were in situ [in place] when Ms Pooley purchased the establishment. Goldrush provides LPMs to numerous establishments across the country. Goldrush has the same relationship with Ms Pooley as it does with the other customers who stock its LPMs.”
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