Man up for lottery fraud

Suspect also linked to graft involving relative’s trust fund.

- Raymond Joseph

A Soweto man implicated in several dodgy lottery grants worth millions of rands appeared in court in Kimberley in connection with an alleged fraudulent lottery payment to a non-profit organisation in the Northern Cape.

The grant, awarded by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) to Kgatelopele Foundation, was meant to "assist gender-based violence victims and to raise awareness of GBV", said Hawks Northern Cape spokesperson, Warrant Officer Nomthandazo Mnisi, Petrus Sedibe, 52, and Johannes Khoza, 35, were arrested in Soweto last week by the Hawks Serious Commercial Crime Unit.

They were taken to Kimberley where they appeared in the magistrate's court on fraud charges.

The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) handed the docket on its investigation into the Kgatelopele grant to the Hawks in May, leading to the pair's arrest.

Sedibe on was released R15 000 bail and Khoza on R10 000.

"Upon receipt of the fraudulent application for funding, the application was taken through the NLC's processes, after which funding of R885 000 was approved," Mnisi said.

The NLC paid the first tranche of R500 000, but the second tranche of R380 000, due after receipt of a progress report on the project meant to benefit the community of Platfontein in Northern Cape, was not paid out, she said.

"It is alleged that during August 2021, the suspects collectively submitted a falsified application for funding to the National Lotteries Commission on the pretence that they were committee members of Kgatelopele Foundation," Mnisi said.

Sedibe is on trial in Johannesburg for allegedly defrauding a relative's trust fund to the tune of R900 000.