Two losing bidders for the national lottery licence have requested reasons from trade, industry & competition minister Parks Tau on why he chose Sizekhaya Holdings, while another has lodged a review application in court.
The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) and Tau suffered five back-to-back court losses in recent legal battles over the R100bn tender.
The commission withdrew a leave to appeal application due to be heard on Friday, sensing a likely defeat.
Tau's office and the NLC on Friday confirmed that Ringeta and Ithuba had requested reasons while Lekalinga had lodged a review application.
Tau's spokesperson Yamkela Fanisi said: “Ringeta has joined the Lekalinga case. Ithuba has thus far only requested reasons [why the licence was awarded to Sizekhaya].”
Asked what the mounting legal challenges meant to the minister, Fanisi said Tau “will engage with the court processes and state our case when required”.
Likalinga founder Vladimir Vukovic said in court papers filed in a bid to have the awarding of the licence to Sizekhaya Holdings set aside that Tau “failed to assess indirect financial interests”. This “would constitute material noncompliance” as the National Lotteries Act prohibited political involvement.
He said that according to company records, Sizekhaya and its partner and shareholder Gold Rush had the same registered address.
Vukovic highlighted that Tau had in December decided to postpone announcing the winning bidder saying he had “identified matters that required further evaluation”.
“The minister's explanation was unfortunately vague and did not disclose the specific issues that required further evaluation. However [he] ... implied that some outstanding concerns or irregularities had emerged during the process.”
Vukovic also raised issues with the licence being issued to Sizekhaya Holdings despite it not being able to set up and run the lottery in the period stated in the request for proposal document.
Tau and the NLC suffered another loss this week when the high court in Pretoria dismissed with costs their leave to appeal a ruling that found a 12-month temporary licence favoured Ithuba and declared it invalid and unlawful. However, the invalidity was suspended for five months.
Judge Sulet Potterill said there was no reasonable prospect another court would find that the minister's delays in announcing the winning bidder for the fourth national lottery licence did not constitute failure to take action.
Tau unsuccessfully argued that the court erred in finding he had failed to provide “justifiable reasons” for the delay.
He also argued that the court erred in exercising its remedial power by suspending the order of invalidity for the temporary lottery licence for only five months.
This means the temporary licence, which would fill the period between the end of the third national lottery licence and the start of the fourth licence, could only be issued for five months and not 12 months as per the initial plan.
Potterill also dismissed the NLC's appeal, stating she was satisfied a fair and transparent process was not followed in relation to the bid and awarding of the temporary licence, which the court found favoured Ithuba.
NLC spokesperson Rudzani Tshigemane said they had filed leave to appeal two recent judgments that were “incorrect in many respects.”
But he said they felt the NLC would likely have got the same outcome in their second appeal, which would have been heard on Friday, in relation to the matter on the awarding of the temporary licence for 12 months.
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