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.
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