The long arm of the law has been slow to hold people responsible for allegedly looting the coffers of the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) over the past decade to account.
But the Special Investigating Unit (SIU), which says it is investigating dodgy lottery grants worth more than R2 billion, has been far more proactive. Its investigations have led to the freezing of luxury houses, farms, cars and other assets bought with misappropriated lottery funding intended for good causes.
Over the past three months, two properties — a farm near Louis Trichardt and a luxury home in Centurion — linked to former Vhembe resident Collins Mukondeleli Tshisimba and his life partner Fulufhelo Promise Kharivhe, were frozen in terms of preservation orders issued by the Special Tribunal.
The couple were identified as key "external players" in the corruption that overwhelmed the NLC under its previous executive and board. Both properties were bought with money siphoned off from lottery grants, according to SIU evidence before the tribunal.
One property, Portion 15 of the farm Zandrivierspoort, is about 15km south of Louis Trichardt. The Special Tribunal granted an order on 31 March preventing Tshisimba or Kharivhe from selling the property.
A second order was granted on 8 April this year, freezing the couple's luxury house in Constantia Avenue, Centurion.
Who is Collins Tshisimba?
Until a decade ago, 47-year-old Tshisimba appears to have been a relatively "ordinary", perhaps even struggling, entrepreneur. He is listed by the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) as a director of four active companies, five that are inactive, and one from which he resigned.
He is the founding member of Woga Agricultural, which at one time had offices in the Limdev building in Sibasa. He is also a member of Elephant Head Training and Security, registered in 2002.
In 2006, Tshisimba registered Ndavha Management, a company that was central to several highly questionable transactions involving misappropriated funds from lottery grants.
Then, around 2016, Tshisimba appears to have hit the jackpot, thanks to his close ties with key players at the NLC.
Tshisimba secured millions in lottery funding, often using hijacked, dormant non-profit organisations (NPOs) without the knowledge of these entities' founders. Large portions of the funding ended up in his and his associates' pockets, or were used to purchase property.
Tshisimba featured in one of Limpopo Mirror's first reports exposing the rot within the lottery's grant distribution process. Together with GroundUp, we exposed a multi-million-rand project to rebuild Vhafamadi School in Malamulele after it was destroyed during protests in 2016.
A Limpopo-based NPO, Simba Community Development Foundation, received R28.3 million to rebuild the school. But a large chunk of the money found its way to individuals, including family members and companies linked to former NLC chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba.
When reporters visited the school in 2018 and asked about shoddy workmanship, Tshisimba was identified as the project's spokesperson. But he dodged questions and referred all inquiries to "my MD", while refusing to say who this was or to identify the company involved.
NPOs hijacked
The SIU's evidence before the tribunal detailed the modus operandi of Tshisimba and Kharivhe, and how they managed to get their hands on the money that funded their lavish lifestyles and property purchases.
In one of the first cases investigated, an NPO formed by rural women from Itsani village in the Vhembe District in 1999, Matieni Community Centre, was hijacked. On 11 September 2017, a grant funding application was submitted to the NLC requesting R20 million for "healthcare awareness programmes about elderly care". It later transpired that the money was to be used to build an old-age home in Marapanya village — the home village of former NLC chief operating officer Phillemon Letwaba.
Two days after the funding application was submitted, an NLC adjudication panel awarded Matieni R23 million — R3 million more than they had asked for. A month later, the money was paid to the NPO, followed by a further R3.75 million in 2019 after Letwaba requested additional funding to complete the project. The old-age home is still incomplete.
But very little of the allocated money made its way to the project, according to the SIU. An amount of R5.975 million was transferred by Matieni to another NPO that Tshisimba was involved in — the Mbidzo Development Programme. Between 2014 and 2021, Mbidzo also received R8 million in Lotto funding.
It appears that Mbidzo was used as a vehicle to launder and distribute funds to a variety of individuals and organisations involved in the looting.
Tshisimba was also involved in the Lethabong Old Age Home project in Kuruman in the Northern Cape, which has never been completed. Lethabong submitted a funding proposal to the NLC on 5 September 2017 and, two months later, received R28.1 million. The NPO then transferred R15 million to Mbidzo.
Another hijacked NPO, WAR_RNA, received R20.12 million in September 2017 to build an old-age home in the North West Province. Two months after receiving the funds, R5 million was paid into Mbidzo's account. This was yet another failed project, and in May 2019, the NLC provided another R2.5 million to try to complete the project.
Money in, money out
Between December 2017 and January 2018, Mbidzo paid more than R1.45 million to property conveyancers to purchase a farm near Louis Trichardt. The farm was registered in the name of Promise Kharivhe, Tshisimba's life partner.
But it seems a secluded life on the farm was not part of Tshisimba and Kharivhe's dream. They also bought a luxury house in an estate in Centurion, near Pretoria.
In August 2018, the Make Me Movement (MMM), in which Tshisimba was not an office bearer, applied to the NLC for funding to develop cycling initiatives in rural areas, including Limpopo.
MMM's director had been tricked into supplying documents after people working with Tshisimba convinced them that they had a contact at the NLC who could help the NPO get lottery funding. A first tranche of R14.233 million was approved and paid into a Nedbank account. MMM, which worked with GBV victims and banked with FNB, never received a cent of the lottery grant.
Over the next few weeks, the money poured out, with not a cent being spent on the project it had been allocated for.
A day after the money landed in the Nedbank account, R3 million was transferred to Thwala Front CC, a company owned by Promise Kharivhe. On the same day, the NPO also paid R1 million to Black Tshisimba (Pty) Ltd, one of Tshisimba's companies, which has since been deregistered.
Then, between August and September 2018, a further R4.13 million was transferred to Thwala Front, and R2 million was paid to Ndavha Management, another of Tshisimba's companies.
On 23 November 2018, Tshisimba signed a purchase agreement, as director of Black Tshisimba, for the Centurion property, and R2.495 million was paid to the conveyancing attorneys handling the sale.
Then, in January 2019, after the NLC paid a second tranche of R3.558 million into the Make Me Movement's account, a further R2.5 million was transferred to Thwala Front. Before this tranche landed, the NPO had only R1,371 left in its account. There is no evidence of any lottery-funded cycling development taking place in Limpopo.
Tshisimba and Kharivhe also did not pay for the property transfer fees from their own pockets. Instead, another hijacked NPO, Uprising Youth Development, was used to cover the R150,198 fee. Uprising had received R5.5 million in lottery funding for a sports project in Alexander Bay, which never happened. The NPO's office bearers previously denied any knowledge of the grant.
On 26 April, the Centurion property was registered in the name of Black Tshisimba (Pty) Ltd.
At least some consequences
Since the SIU was mandated to investigate corruption at the NLC, the unit has secured preservation orders on numerous properties, vehicles and even pension funds. But criminal prosecutions, which fall under the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks), have been almost entirely lacking.
Most of the senior management, along with board members, have since resigned — many after disciplinary proceedings were instituted.
"The order of the Special Tribunal is part of implementing SIU investigation outcomes and consequence management to recover financial losses suffered by state institutions because of corruption or negligence. The order forms part of a broader investigation into corruption involving NLC grants intended for community development projects," said the SIU's spokesperson, Kaizer Kganyago.