Oilgate's Majali sues Skweyiya

Controversial oil dealer Sandi Majali is suing Minister of Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya for R149-million, the Sunday Times reported.

Majali was to have received a contract to dispense social grants on behalf of the government. His consortium was sent a letter stating that his IT company IT Lynx Consortium was the Department of Social Development’s first choice for the R500-million contract.

However, the department pulled out of the deal after intervention from the National Treasury, which thought it too costly.

The contract dispute took place just months after Majali paid R65 000 for renovations to Skweyiya’s home and offered Skweyiya’s wife a job in another of his companies, Imvume Management.

Imvume has since claimed that the money was a loan that had been repaid.

Majali’s lawyer, Barry Aaron, confirmed on Friday that his client is pursuing legal action against Skweyiya and the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), which administered the tender process on behalf of Skweyiya’s department.

Majali shot to prominence three years ago when his then little-known oil company scooped a massive R1-billion government oil tender.

In what is now known as the Oilgate scandal, it emerged that Majali had used an R11-million advance from state oil company PetroSA to help the African National Congress’s 2004 election fund.

He has still not fully repaid PetroSA.

Although IT Lynx claimed in court papers filed in the Pretoria High Court that it had been granted the tender, Skweyiya argues that “a mere offer and acceptance of [IT Lynx’s] tender proposal could not constitute a formal contract”.

Skweyiya and Sita deny that the tender was ever allocated to IT Lynx, the Sunday Times reported. Skweyiya could not be reached for comment on Sunday afternoon.—Sapa