WITH striking candour, Penuell Maduna admitted to the parliamentary committee on mineral and energy affairs last October that, four months into his new job, he was struggling. “I don’t know where to begin,” the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs confessed. It was easy to understand why.
He inherited from Pik Botha a weak, thoroughly old-guard department. He was also saddled with the crop of thorny policy issues Botha had craftily dodged. Most of these related to the oil industry.
Ten months later Maduna still faces an extraordinarily complex task, made harder by his apparent reluctance to use his department. He has relied heavily on two special advisers, neither of whom are steeped in the nuances of the fuel scene.
Perhaps this accounts for Maduna’s energetic activity on the human resources front – particularly where the ousting of old-guard civil servants is concerned.
And what better place to start than with the government’s oil trading arm, the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF), once a nest of spooks and “total-onslaught” boffins. In March Maduna publicly suspended SFF chief Kobus van Zyl on “probable cause” after receiving the preliminary findings of auditors he had appointed six weeks earlier to explore the fund’s accounts. The minister did not notify the SFF’s auditors – Price Waterhouse or the auditor general – of his probe. The minister also slated both in Parliament, violating the Constitution’s protection of the auditor general.
The allegations against Van Zyl stemmed from the payment of an “extra” 7,5 US cents a barrel for the purchase of oil from Egypt in 1992 – most likely a boycott-busting premium. Maduna’s office admitted there was no proof Van Zyl personally benefited from the deal. Four months later, Maduna’s team is still beavering away. And Van Zyl’s lawyers are still awaiting official reasons for his suspension.
Meanwhile Judge Edwin Cameron has reversed Maduna’s firing of Gerhard Bindemann, chief executive officer of the Diamond Board. Cameron found Maduna had ignored basic legal rights when he axed him in a letter left on Bindemann’s desk one lunchtime.
Maduna recently told Parliament the final SFF report – due two months ago – would be completed “soon”. He trotted out more allegations, including a “R170-million loss” from the transfer of oil stocks. This was what most accountants term a “book debit”. Maduna said he did not “know as yet who the recipients were”. He also told Parliament he did not care a “tinker’s cuss” what a reporter on this newspaper felt about his probe.
We can only hope he does give a “tinker’s cuss” that his auditors deliver. We can’t wait forever for the Minister of Mineral and Energy Affairs to get on top of his job.