‘Saving the country’: Mzukisi Makatse outed R6-million of irregular lottery funding and says more protection is needed for those who fight graft
The sooner the concept of whistleblowing is understood in South Africa, the better the country’s chances are at dealing with the scourge of pernicious corruption.
This was the contention made by Mzukisi Makatse, who lost his job as the Eastern Cape’s monitoring and evaluations officer at the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) in February 2018 after refusing to authorise what he called irregular R6-million funding for the province’s Buyel’Ekhaya festival music festival.
The festival, which had been an annual event that began in December 2009, was last hosted in 2019.
The Mail & Guardian reported in February 2018 that the R6-million payment was made to an obscure nonprofit organisation in the North West province that used the same email address as the music festival’s, even though the Thato Community Crisis Centre was based in another province.
Makatse said the Buyambo Cultural Organisation, which owns the music festival, had received funding of R5-million from the NLC in 2016 and had to undergo a one-year “cooling-off period” before being sponsored again.
This was according to 2015 trade and industry regulations, which stated that NLC beneficiaries should not be sponsored for 12 months after being funded, regardless if the project was different or new from the previous one that received a grant.
In an August 2017 email, Makatse refused to approve the funding, and was suspended the next day before being dismissed in February 2018.
Speaking to the M&G this week, sternly sipping his soft drink, Makatse said the spotlight should not be placed on him but on the concept of whistleblowing itself for the country to rid itself of corruption.
“I think whistleblowing, as a concept, needs more attention, not only by the government, but society at large. We need people to understand this concept as a tool to fight corruption — to expose the pool of malfeasance,” he said.
“If we are going to use it to shine a spotlight on ourselves as individuals, it might sometimes look like we are seeking attention for ourselves. So that is why I am concerned that you want to profile me as an individual, because I don’t want to be profiled.”
Tsietsi Maselwa, the NLC’s legal head, told the M&G in February 2018 the Buyambo Cultural Organisation received Lotto funding in 2015 and the Thato Centre, which acted as a representative for Buyambo, was given funding in 2017.
There was no need for a cooling-off period for the Buyel’Ekhaya project to be funded through the Thato Centre, Maselwa said.
Makatse is embroiled in a legal tussle with his former employer because he believes that his dismissal was illegal. He was dismissed for failure to sign off on what he believed would be a fraudulent payment to an organisation that had allegedly circumvented the cooling-off period.
“I was dismissed without a hearing, summarily, and that was done outside of my contract because my contract referred to a disciplinary hearing being heard when you are accused of these allegations.
“That process of a disciplinary hearing was not followed and I was chucked out — and that was the end of my tenure at the NLC,” he said, adding that he had previously been the commission’s provincial grant agreement officer.
Makatse said the matter was unsuccessful in the East London high court, after he sued for R10-million in damages for breach of contract. He added that he believed the court incorrectly applied laws related to labour law when he had sued on the basis of a common law of contract.
The former NLC official said the matter was currently at the supreme court of appeal (SCA), where he was petitioning the court’s president to hear his appeal.
“I am prepared to take this matter up to the constitutional court if need be. If we cannot succeed at the SCA, we will go straight to the constitutional court. “I’m trying to put together some resources — people who can assist [so I can] take this matter up.”
NLC spokesperson Ndivhuho Mafela defended the commission’s axing of Makatse, saying: “The NLC believes that the decision it has taken with regard to this matter is above board. This has been confirmed by the judgment of the Eastern Cape high court.”
Losing his job, Makatse said, had put an enormous strain on his family situation, where he and his fiancée lived apart for a year, and she took their children during that period.
Makatse said he is back living with his family now, but the financial situation has made it difficult for him to fully support all three of his children, aged three, six and 11.
A qualified attorney, Makatse said he began the process of starting a law firm while still employed by the commission because of what he described as an acrimonious relationship with his former employer.
But his firm had not been doing well, Makatse said. “I had to stay from one place to the next while also trying to put together this law firm, even though I didn’t have a proper office; I didn’t have resources to run [it]. I had to run it from my own pocket. I had to make sure that my children’s school fees were paid because that is what I was responsible for. But they got affected because their needs, now, were not met,” Makatse explained.
“My three-year-old, who was in school, had to drop out because I could not pay his fees this year. So, he dropped out and I’m wondering how it’s going to work next year so he can go back to school. Because he is going to be four years old and he has to be in school.”
In July 2018, Makatse wrote an open letter to President Cyril Ramaphosa shortly after he succeeded Jacob Zuma in the presidency five months earlier.
In the letter, Makatse outlined the plight of whistleblowers, and called on the president to take the issue of whistleblowing as a tool to fight corruption seriously.
“Mr President, as whistleblowers we have suffered a lot of harassment, victimisation and persecution for daring to take a stand and exposing corruption even at the highest echelons of public and private institutions. We have been subjected to the worst forms of abuse that left many of us with psychological scars that should make us doubt the correctness of our decision to expose corruption,” he wrote.
Makatse added: “Mr President, we have at times been made to feel that we are the villains and scums of the earth just for doing what we believe is the right thing for our country.”
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