The National Lottery Commission (NLC) has denied ever funding Siyazama Day Care Centre in Needs Camp, saying that the Siyazama they had funded was in Maclear.
But there is no daycare centre with that name in Maclear. However, the Dispatch has established that the NLC actually funded Siyazama Preschool in Maclear.
Last weekend the Dispatch reported that the NLC’s 2016-17 annual report stated that a Siyazama Day Care Centre received R1.2m in Lotto funds.
Staff at the Siyazama Day Care Centre in East London’s Needs Camp knew nothing about it.
Subsequent to the news report, the NLC’s head of stakeholder relations, marketing and communication Ndivhuho Mafela lodged a dispute with the Dispatch, stating the Siyazama Day Care Centre the NLC had funded was a non-profit organisation in Maclear.
This is despite the fact that the NLC had initially denied ever funding Siyazama Day Care Centre, despite it being reported as such in their annual report.
“The assertion that the beneficiary received R1.2m as listed on Page 177 of the NLC’s 2016-17 Annual Report under project 82283 is untrue.
“The payment reflected in that annual report was for a different project altogether – Siyazama Day Care Centre (NPO045–652),” Mafela said.
However, this week a Dispatch team visited the Maclear project and established that its name is Siyazama Preschool, not Siyazama Day Care Centre, as indicated by Mafela. In the NLC annual report it is reflected that R1.2m went to a Siyazama Day Care Centre.
“The payment of R1.2m which you referred to in the article was just a tranche of the total grant of R3.8m,” he said.
The NLC’s monitoring and evaluation officials had visited the Maclear project and it was awaiting a final report from the beneficiary, he added.
Mafela also disputed that the Needs Camp Siyazama organisation had applied for funding between 2014 and 2015 without receiving any correspondence from the NLC.
“With regard to the application that was supposedly declined, our system has no record of such application but of another Siyazama that is based in Alice,” Mafela said.
However, in Needs Camp, Siyazama Day Care Centre administrator Nomathemba Mnywabe said last week: “We applied between the years 2014 and 2015. We never received any response, so last year I took the forms again and decided to apply this year in April.
“On 1 November we were notified that our application had been approved.”
This week Mnywabe told the Dispatch that the NLC officials had called them for a meeting.
“We have not gone there yet. We do not have cash [for transport],” she said.
Mafela accused the Dispatch of being “deceptive” regarding the questions posed to the NLC last week.
“Had the journalist been upfront and transparent about the intentions behind his deceptively straightforward inquiry, we would have assisted him with the facts,” he said.
On November 15 the Dispatch initially requested an interview with NLC provincial manager Mzikayise Mani.
However, the NLC’s Kefilwe Makhanya advised the Dispatch to send questions to the national office.
In his response a day later, Mafela said the NLC had never funded a Siyazama Day Care Centre in 2017.
A screengrab of the NLC’s 2016-17 annual report showing that the Lotto gave the centre the funding was then sent to Mafela. He did not respond...