Developing the sport in South Africa in the junior category for over a decade, the Royal Bafokeng nation is a growing talent pool (Photo by Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images),
The financial and governance shortcomings at Basketball South Africa have been put under the spotlight because of fraud allegations to the tune of R3.1-million, for which the organisation’s former national administrator is facing charges.
Tshepo Nyewe was picked up last Friday near the Lesotho border after having allegedly been on the run since 2019, when his alleged theft scheme, which the state claims ran from 2014 to 2016, was finally uncovered. Insiders at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said Nyewe was fleeing South Africa to try to evade prosecution.
He appeared at the Johannesburg specialised commercial crimes court this week on charges of fraud or alternate counts of theft.
A state investigative note outlines how the former basketball administrator allegedly diverted payments that were due to Ramotsoenyane Rapid Transport Services, which had a transportation contract with Basketball South Africa, to his own bank account.
“The accused presented to Basketball South Africa [his account number] as the account numbers of their supplier and/or service providers … while knowing fully well that the account numbers belonged to him. In short, the accused substituted the service provider’s bank account number with his own account number,” reads the NPA’s note.
A source close to Nyewe, however, dismissed the state’s claims that the alleged fraudster was trying to flee to Lesotho, saying he was crossing the border on a work trip to act as a commissioner for a youth tournament sanctioned by the International Basketball Federation (Fiba).
The source added that Fiba had kept Nyewe on its records, and that he would administer and monitor tournaments sanctioned by basketball’s international governing body.
“So, when he was found in Ladybrand [in the Free State], he was supposed to go to Lesotho because there is an under-16 Fiba tournament for SADC [the Southern African Development Community]. He was supposed to commission those games,” said the source, who asked to remain anonymous.
The source added that Nyewe’s involvement with Fiba was on a part-time basis.
The Mail & Guardian learned that Nyewe allegedly misled investigators about his home address. Advocate Bongani Chauke, the prosecutor in the matter, told magistrate Phillip Venter that the state needed to verify Nyewe’s residential address because the accused had given conflicting answers about where he lived.
According to sources close to the probe, Nyewe initially told investigators that he had a house in Vereeniging, when in fact he lived on his family’s homestead in Queenstown in the Eastern Cape.
“[Nyewe] stays in Queenstown; it is his [parents’] house. He was staying in Vereeniging for two reasons. First, he was employed at VUT [Vaal University of Technology]. Second, he studied at VUT, but he stayed for a long time there,” said a source close to Nyewe.
Chauke told the court that Nyewe’s attorney could not make the first appearance because of a prior engagement, and another date had to be arranged for the accused’s formal bail application.
Nyewe, who is suspected of having committed what is known as a schedule five offence under the Criminal Procedure Act, will have to prove to the court that the interests of justice permit his release on bail, the magistrate told the accused.
He remains in custody until his formal bail application, and has not yet indicated which way he will plead.
Nyewe said he had no prior convictions, nor was he facing other charges besides the alleged fraud, adding: “I was once arrested for drinking and driving, but it was dismissed.”
Meanwhile, governance and financial troubles at Basketball South Africa were laid bare recently during the organisation’s briefing to the sports, arts and culture portfolio committee in parliament.
At the committee meeting, Basketball South Africa’s treasurer general Victor Bergman said the organisation could not release audited financial statements and annual reports from 2016 to 2020 because of “serious maladministration” and that it had “battled to implement some of its critical programmes because of challenges in funding allocations from the department of sport and recreation”.
Bergman also listed corruption as one of the factors that gutted the sport in the country, and has seen South Africa being ranked 125th out of 165 countries affiliated to Fiba.
The treasurer general added that the financial statements for the period 2016 to 2020 had been completed, and that its forensic auditors had advised that criminal charges be opened for irregularities of an estimated amount of R622 000.
During the period when Nyewe’s alleged theft took place, Basketball South Africa had to return R6.9-million to the National Lotteries Commission because of alleged mismanagement of grant funds. The body was also saddled with a R5.5-million debt owed to its creditors, many of which were small and medium enterprises.
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