Late Oscar-winning South African actor’s lottery-funded property frozen

A property in Pretoria bought by Oscar-winning actor Presley Chweneyagae, using funds from a lottery grant, has been frozen by the Special Tribunal.

The money came from a R15-million grant to the Presley Chweneyagae Foundation via the Southern African Youth Movement (SAYM).

The National Lotteries Commission (NLC) grant was intended to fund an anti-drug themed musical, Taking Back the Future.

It was meant to tour three provinces, but it only ran for five nights at a small venue in the Free State.

SAYM received over R67.5-million for lottery-funded projects. Both SAYM and Alfred Sigudla, its executive director, have featured prominently in a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) probe into corruption involving lottery grant funding.

The SAYM grants were also supposed to build an old-age home, a drug rehabilitation centre. Neither are operational.

The preservation order, handed down by Judge Margaret Victor on 18 December, is directed at Chweneyagae’s wife, Charlaine, the executor of her husband’s estate, as well as several individuals and entities.

Chweneyagae, who won an Oscar for his role in the movie Tsotsi, died aged 40 in May from respiratory problems.

His Tsotsi co-star, Terry Pheto, also benefited from a dodgy lottery grant, which she used to buy a house in Bryanston. The house was frozen by the tribunal and subsequently sold for R3.9-million.

A 2024 SIU graphic, presented to Parliament, shows how the money meant for Chweneyagae’s musical flowed to some of the people and entities named in last week’s order.

At the time the SIU told MPs that it had uncovered a “criminal syndicate” operating inside the NLC

“The order prohibits any sale, transfer, lease, encumbrance, or disposal of the home in Pretoria, Gauteng, pending the finalisation of civil proceedings to be instituted by the SIU within 60 court days,” said SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago.

Among those named in the order are

• Domestic Baboon (Pty) Ltd, a company in which Chweneyagae was the sole director, which allegedly bought the Pretoria property for R889,000;

• Alfred Sigudla, whose home was frozen by the tribunal earlier this year;

• Former NLC COO Phillemon Letwaba, who resigned under a cloud in 2022;

• Ironbridge Travel and Events, a company in which Letwaba’s wife, Rebotile Malomane, was the sole director;

• Karabo Sithole, Letwaba’s cousin, who was involved in several dodgy lottery projects, like a dodgy stadium in Limpopo; and

• Meshack Makhubela, the sole director of VNMM Consulting Engineers and son-in-law of the former, scandal-ridden NLC chairperson, Alfred Nevhutanda.

This article was written by Raymond Joseph for GroundUp, and has been republished with permission.