Bingo battle: Businessman to take MEC to court
A KZN businessman wants the court to strip MEC Belinda Scott of the powers that give her reponsibility for gambling in the province.
|||Durban - The battle for electronic bingo has been taken to a new level with one businessman wanting the MEC for Finance, Belinda Scott, stripped of her powers that give her responsibility for gambling.
Phelelani Percy Shabalala, director of Poppy Ice Trading, which operates as Great Bingo, is heading for the High Court in Pietermaritzburg, where he will argue that the new Premier Willies Mchunu’s decision to retain Scott as the MEC responsible for gaming and betting is “unlawful and irrational”.
He claims that this is because of a conflict of interest, and alleges bias in favour of casinos and horse race gambling.
But Scott’s department said today: “The allegations in the application made by Poppy Ice are scurrilous and vexatious and we dismiss them with contempt. There is no truth to the statements. The matter is with our legal team.”
Shabalala operates paper bingo and has some limited pay-out machines at his operation in Ladysmith, but like other bingo licensees in the province, he was granted a licence to install electronic bingo terminals (EBTs), but has been unable to start operating them.
This is because the licences were granted by the previous KZN Gaming and Betting Board, which was replaced by Scott, who said that the board’s decision to grant the licences was “irregular and illegal” and should be set aside.
The matter was taken to court by Scott and the previous premier, Senzo Mchunu, in a bid to prevent the implementation of the decision, with the casino industry joining the case with additional issues.
The complex case had been deferred and there was no indication when it would be back in court, “as it is not even on the roll”, said Shabalala, one of the parties involved in the matter, in an interview on Thursday.
Now, Shabalala who has shelled out R20 million to set up his bingo business, has had enough and wants the gaming and betting portfolio assigned to another MEC or to the Premier’s Office, where it was before it became Scott’s responsibility.
Shabalala’s current court action has the support of members of the Bingo Association of South Africa, which points out that bingo licences were put out to public tender 10 years ago and since then, there have been extensive disputes, which have mainly been motivated by “the casino industry’s desire to prevent the introduction of EBTs in the province”.
Association chairman, Lawrence Smith, said the bingo industry had attempted through negotiations and compromises - including agreeing to significantly reduce the number of bingo licences in the province - to find a solution to the impasse, but without success.
Scott had even promised to set up a task team to look into the issue, but that had never happened, he said.
“We have tried everything to find a way forward,” Smith said, explaining that, having been granted EBT licences, the licensees had spent “hundreds of millions of rand” on their businesses, with much of the money going on renting large premises, “all for nothing”.
Shabalala said his latest move to take court action to get the gambling portfolio removed from Scott was “just about justice and fairness…it’s a matter of principle”.
“I have a licence for 90 electronic bingo terminals, but I can’t implement it,” he said.
He claimed in his affidavit “that Scott wants to keep bingo operators, equipped with EBTs, out of the market for them not to share in the gambling cake”.
Citing an alleged conflict of interest, he said both Scott and her husband were members of Gold Circle, which was devoted to the horse racing industry, which relied on gambling.
Her husband was a breeder of thoroughbred horses; and “it follows that anyone associated with the breeding of thoroughbred horses is linked to gambling associated with horse racing.”
He further claimed that Scott did not disclose her links to the horse racing industry when the premier assigned the gambling portfolio to her.
The MEC has denied this, pointing out in a letter to City Press recently that her husband had relatives active in breeding horses in the Nottingham Road area, and racehorses - and that this was disclosed to the premier shortly after she was appointed MEC in June 2014.
This information was also out in her public profile in the printed media and on her department’s website.
Shabalala further alleged that Scott had shown bias to Gold Circle, which was also denied by the MEC.
Neither Scott nor her husband or his family took part in the financial or administrative functions of the horse-racing regulatory industry in any way, she said recently.
In a letter to City Press about the Gold Circle claims, the MEC wrote that these were a repetition of previous allegations.
Daily News