South Africa’s national lottery has allocated just over one billion rand for distribution to charities and other projects during the financial year ending March 2003 — but only 16% or R168-million has actually been distributed.
According to Trade and Industry Minister Alec Erwin these funds are made available for distribution in the year after they were generated. Thus, he said the funds made available for the financial year ending March 2003 — an amount of R1 023-million — were generated in the financial year ending March 2002 and include any unspent funds.
Asked by Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Mark Lowe what the latest available total revenues had been of the National Lottery Fund, Erwin said total revenue from April 1, 1999, to February 28, 2003 was 2,5-billion — including interest received and accrued.
Revenue was just R10-million from April 1, 1999, to March 31, 2000. This rose to R455-million the following year and again to R925-million the next year. Between April 2002 and February 28, 2003, R1,1-billion was raised.
The minister only provided figures for the allocation of funds for good purposes for the period March 1, 2002 to February 28 this year. He said 66% of the funds available had been allocated — a total of R678-million.
Of the R1 023-million, R225-million was available for arts, culture, and national heritage projects while R126-million or 56% had been allocated; R369-million was available for charities but R336-million or 91% of this had been allocated; R225-million had been made available for sport and recreation while R207-million rand or 92% had been allocated. Under the miscellaneous category R51-million had been made available and R10-million or 19% allocated.
But ‘allocated’ refers simply to the paper process which has been undertaken and only R20-million or 9% of the arts and culture money has been distributed. In the charities category only 32% or R118-million has reached the recipients.
Of the sport and recreation allocation only R20-million or 9% has reached recipients and in the miscellaneous purposes category only R10-million or 19% has reached recipients.
In the RDP category, which has R154-million available, no money has been spent because the Reconstruction and Development Programme has been scrapped.
In response to the minister’s report, Lowe said: “This question has been answered deviously; you can talk to any charity, they are screaming blue murder, their receipts are down tenfold.”
He added that he would ask the minister further questions during question time in the National Assembly on Wednesday. – I-Net Bridge