Tens of millions of rands of Lotto money earmarked for charities and good causes is lying undistributed in the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF), the Democratic Alliance (DA) said on Monday.
Over a 100 non-profit organisations were affected, and the situation had reached a point where many were cutting staff, salaries and services in order to keep going, DA social development spokesperson Janet Semple told a parliamentary media briefing.
She said her party had received submissions on the funding crisis from 105 organisations, most of which did not want to be named because they were ”terrified of some sort of retribution” from the NLDTF, after being told by officials that if they complained they would get no money.
The DA’s claim that fund officials threatened applicants has been strongly denied by the NLDTF.
”That’s utter nonsense … it’s not true,” NLDTF spokesperson Sershan Naidoo said. He called on organisations who believed they had been treated in such a way to come forward and not ”complain under a cloud of anonymity”.
Semple said it appeared the NLDTF’s payments system had worked effectively up until 2006.
”But no money was distributed [in that year], and the situation has not improved substantially since then … Massive inefficiency appears to be the biggest problem,” she said.
Her colleague, DA trade and industry spokesperson Pierre Rabie, said there was a ”vast amount” of money outstanding in payments that should have been made by the NLDTF. Asked to put a figure on this, he said a total had not been estimated, but agreed it was likely in the tens of millions.
Semple said the problems at the NLDTF were ”endemic and enormous”. Its ”negligence and sluggishness” in the processing of funding applications had been disastrous for many charities.
”The result of this is that many ill, hungry, illiterate, disabled or poor South Africans are not receiving the care from these organisations that they would otherwise receive,” she said.
Naidoo said the NLDTF was subject to a stringent annual audit, and that to date, nothing untoward had ever been found concerning the fund.
Asked if, in general terms, there had been some delays and problems, he conceded ”we’ve had a few issues”.
These mainly related to the fact that the amounts being asked for by applicants totalled in the millions of rands, and each application needed careful checking.
”We try and process all applications within a year,” he said.
Naidoo said the NLDTF was trying to arrange a meeting — through the Department of Trade and Industry — with the DA to discuss the problems the party had with the fund. — Sapa