The selection of the next operator of the National Lottery has been unnecessarily messy and costly.
Jan Cronje/News24
There are some things that are totally predictable in South Africa. Jacob Zuma will find a reason to drag out his trial. Helen Zille will say something stupid and inflammatory. Julius Malema will say something stupid and inflammatory. Cyril Ramaphosa will be shocked. The PSL season will end in chaos. And Johannesburg’s traffic lights will flake out during the summer rains.
There is an argument that societies should be grateful for predictability, as it enables them to plan. If that predictability is negative, then you can work on overcoming the deficiency and, if it is in the positive, then you can work on improvements.
But there is nothing good when that predictability is costly and eminently avoidable.
This is the case with the selection of the operator of the National Lottery. This newly chosen entity will be the fourth operator of the lottery in the country. Each time the process for the running of what has been described as the country’s “biggest tender” is about to reach conclusion, it is blighted by a flurry of legal challenges. The challengers range from the incumbent to the line-up of fresh bidders who have invested enormous amounts of cash in the expensive bidding process for the eight-year licence that almost literally allows you to print money.
The current process has been mired in the same predictable controversy, only messier.
After an inordinate amount of time spent making his decision in conjunction with the National Lotteries Commission, Trade and Industry Minister Parks Tau eventually named the Sizekhaya consortium as the winner.
To underline the shambolic nature of the process, Tau made the announcement just three days before the expiration of the current licence, after being forced to do so by the Pretoria High Court. Judge Sulet Potterill shot down Tau’s attempt to delay the announcement by a year while the lottery is run by a temporary holder – most likely a sister company to the incumbent, Ithuba.
Saying the process was “very complex”, Tau justified his decision (or indecision) on the grounds that, “in the past, serious allegations of corruption were made in respect of the National Lotteries Commission and the way the lottery was managed. These considerations prompted me to take a very cautious approach.”
Potterill was having none of it and ordered him to announce the winner by yesterday, when Ithuba’s licence was set to expire.
When he made his declaration, Tau left the winner with just three days to get its ducks in a row, instead of the five to six months it would need. To complicate matters, Ithuba – the only entity with the capacity to step in until Sizekhaya is ready – has been refusing to continue working for the next five months and is insisting that it will only make commercial sense if this period is much longer.
With accusations of political bias whirling, the integrity of the process is in tatters. Months and even years of litigation are inevitable. Build One SA and other societal players have called on Tau and the National Lotteries Commission to disclose to Parliament, and therefore to the nation, the records of the adjudication that delivered the final outcome.
“Party connections and insider deals cannot be the order of the day,” Build One SA’s Nobuntu Hlazo-Webster said this week.
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