Court dismisses NLC's bid to extend temporary licence to 12 months

The Pretoria high court on Friday dismissed, with costs, an urgent application by the National Lotteries Commission (NLC) in which it sought to vary an order made by the court on May 21.

Earlier this month, law firm Nortons Inc successfully represented the Wina Njalo Consortium in an urgent review of a number of decisions by the minister of trade, industry and competition Parks Tau in relation to the awarding of the fourth national lottery licence.

The May 21 judgment declared the minister’s failure to award and issue the fourth lottery licence, as well as his decisions to extend the bid validity period and issue a temporary licence request for proposal (RFP) to be unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid and set them aside.

The court suspended the order of invalidity in relation to the issuing of the temporary licence RFP for five months to allow the fourth licensee time to take over the operation of the lottery.

The NLC, dissatisfied with the high court’s order, launched an urgent application in the same court on Monday to vary the time period of the suspension of the order of invalidity from five months to 12 months. It argued there were new facts or a change in circumstances since the date of the May 21 order.

It argued that Ithuba Lottery, which would operate the lottery temporarily, had indicated it would not agree to a five-month contract and, that Sizekhaya, the successful bidder for the fourth licence, required a transition period of nine months to take over the lottery operations.

Ithuba's refusal is said to be on account of the five-month period not being financially viable for it, as that would result in Ithuba incurring a net loss of R51m.

Wina Njalo argued that Ithuba had presented no evidence to the court in relation to the suspension period, and that there was no evidence justifying the extraordinary relief sought.

The matter was argued on Thursday and, in a judgment handed down on Friday, judge Omphemetse Mooki said he was not persuaded that the NLC had made a case for the extension of the period of suspension of invalidity.

“There is no substantive support that Ithuba Lottery will suffer a loss of R51m unless it is granted a temporary licence for a 12-month period,” Mooki said.

In addition, Mooki said, there was complete silence by Ithuba Lottery.

“It has not filed any affidavits, despite the core to this application being premised on Ithuba Lottery's attitude.”

Mooki said the commission was aware on May 22 2025, when it wrote to Ithuba Lottery, that the court had ordered the previous day that Ithuba Lottery was to operate over a five-month period.

“This notwithstanding, the commission was soliciting that Ithuba Lottery sign a licence to operate over a 12-month period.

“The commission was thus inviting Ithuba Lottery to sign an agreement that would breach the order made on May 21,” Mooki said.

Mooki said the commission did not address Wina Njalo's contention that the commission did not put up evidence that Sizekhaya, the new licensee, could not commence operations within a five-month period.

“Wina Njalo pointed out that it was, in any event, a condition to the RFP that a successful bidder must be able to operate within five to six months of being licensed.”

Mooki said the commission's stance that the transition period was based on what Sizekhaya said was practically possible, being a period not less than nine months, was wholly untenable.

“This is contrary to the RFP. The RFP specified that a successful bidder had to have demonstrated that it could commence operations within six months.”

Mooki pointed out that Sizekhaya did not participate in these proceedings.

“There is no evidence as to why Sizekhaya requires a transition period of no less than nine months.”

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