Soweto duo in court over alleged R885,000 lottery grant fraud
This case, which marks the second prosecution in a sprawling investigation into the misappropriation of lottery funds, despite referrals made years ago, exposes ongoing delays in the justice system.
South Africa.- Two Soweto residents have been docked over allegations of misappropriating an R885,000 (€43,146) grant from the National Lotteries Commission (NLC), intended for a gender-based violence (GBV) project in the Northern Cape.
Jeremane Petrus Sedibe and Malesela Johannes Khoza appeared in the Kimberley Regional Court this week on charges of fraud, theft, money laundering and related offences.
The case, which marks the second prosecution in a sprawling investigation into the misappropriation of lottery funds, despite referrals made years ago, exposes ongoing delays in the justice system, as the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) continues to uncover a web of deceit involving over R2 billion (€97.5m) in questionable grants.
Sedibe, 52, and Khoza, 35, were arrested in Soweto in August 2024 by the Hawks’ Serious Commercial Crime Unit following an SIU probe into the 2021 grant awarded to a non-profit organisation they controlled.
According to the charge sheet, the duo allegedly submitted forged documents and false progress reports to secure the funding from the NLC, ostensibly for a GBV initiative in a remote Northern Cape village. Instead of delivering on the project, they reportedly diverted the funds for personal use, including transferring money between accounts to obscure its origins and spending on unrelated expenses.
A monitoring officer at the NLC’s Northern Cape office flagged the fraudulent reports, but they were allegedly altered with the aid of provincial officials to approve a second tranche of R385,000 (€18,707).
Mashudu Netshikweta, Head of the SIU’s NLC Investigation Team, told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) in May 2025 that Sedibe alone was linked to at least six fraudulent organisations across provinces, including a R1.4 million (€68,255) embezzlement in the Free State and a R1.2 million (€58,506) scam in Limpopo, both for purported GBV programs that never materialised. Another example involves a R9 million (€438,783) grant to the Motheo Sports and Entertainment Foundation for a Soweto sports centre that remains an undeveloped rubbish dump, as verified by on-site investigations.
Netshikweta emphasised the role of NLC insiders, noting that officials in the Northern Cape provincial office, including Acting Manager Aobakwe Gaobuse, facilitated the fraud by signing off on altered documents despite red flags. Gaobuse was among seven staff targeted in a 2022 SIU-Hawks raid on the Kimberley office.
Further SIU probes revealed that Sedibe and Khoza listed themselves as co-signatories on the grant account, enabling direct access to funds disbursed in December 2021.
The court adjourned the case to October 7 2025, giving the accused time to appoint new lawyers, and extended their bail conditions to R15,000 (€731) for Sedibe and R10,000 (€487) for Khoza.
