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The National Lottery and the non-profit sector
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| 1.3 The National Lotteries Board |
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The National Lotteries Board is a statutory body established in terms of the Lotteries Act (57 of 1997). The Board is responsible for the regulation of all lotteries conducted in South Africa, including the National Lottery, as well as other private and society lotteries.
The Board is made up of public nominees, at least four of whom are outside government service, and is chaired by Joe Foster. Although the Board reports annually to parliament, it operates independently.
In addition to ensuring that the National Lottery and all other lotteries are conducted “with due propriety”, the Lotteries Board has three other duties that are of particular concern here, namely:
- to protect the interests of all participants,
- to maximise the net proceeds of the National Lottery, and
- to ensure that a percentage of money from ticket sales is transferred to the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund (NLDTF) and administered and invested in terms of the
Lotteries Act.6
It is important to emphasise that the Lotteries Board understands the phrase “all participants” to imply that they are accountable only to
ticket holders,7 and not to non-profit organisations applying for funding from the national Lottery.
This is an area where further debate should occur. It is not unreasonably to assume that all three of these duties go beyond a narrow, bureaucratic mandate, and imply a substantial degree of accountability to both the general public and the intended beneficiaries of the good cause money. This is discussed in more detail in 2.1.2.
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Footnotes:
- National Lotteries Board (2001).
- Interview with Sershan Naidoo, 20/05/2002.
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