Mungo Soggot
The man at the centre of the state oil scandal, Don Mkhwanazi, has asked the government to more than triple his salary to R1,2-million a year. Mkhwanazi, who works part-time at the Central Energy Fund as its non-executive chairman, recently sent a written proposal for an increase to the department of minerals and energy.
If he is awarded the increase Mkhwanazi will be one of South Africa’s highest paid civil servants, setting an extraordinary precedent for other government officials and parastatal heads.
The deputy director general of the department, Dr Gordon Sibiya, declined to comment.
It is understood that some officials in the department and the minerals and energy ministry are unimpressed with Mkhwanazi’s proposal, but have yet to decide whether to accept it.
Earlier this year Mkhwanazi asked the department to include a luxury 4×4 car in his package, but was persuaded to withdraw his request.
Mkhwanazi became the fund’s executive chairman in March, when he took over from Roy Pithey. Pithey, who has retired, was paid R337 000 and received neither a car nor pension fund. Pithey had no other jobs and worked full time at the fund.
Mkhwanazi has been less focused on his state job, spending much of his time at his Durban office, where he runs the National Empowerment Trust. He also sits on numerous boards, including that of the Industrial Development Corporation.
His main contribution to the CEF has been to appoint Emanuel Shaw II and Emanuel Shaw III to advise him on the restructuring and privatisation of the fund’s assets – an appointment which is now the subject of an inquiry by the minerals and energy department.
Shaw II and III are being paid R2,4-million a year in installments paid quarterly in advance – in addition to a $1 000 a day allowance for work done outside the country, and R2 500 a day for work done outside Johannesburg. They also have access to a R50 000 expense account.
Since the scandal surrounding their appointment broke at the beginning of last month, Shaw has spent several weeks out of the country.
He accompanied Liberian leader Charles Taylor on a trip to Taipei and then spent some time in Monrovia, from where he launched an unsuccessful bid to interdict the Mail & Guardian and helped Mkhwanazi compose an advertisement to hit back at the allegations against them.
Shaw is “ambassador extraordinaire” to Liberia, economic adviser to Taylor, and was recently appointed chairman of a presidential commission into Liberia’s banking sector. Taylor is understood to have announced recently that the Bank of Liberia had only $17 000 left in the kitty.
Numerous attempts were made to reach Mkhwanazi who was at his Durban home this week. Questions were faxed to his house.
Mkhwanazi’s private press representative, Guy Vezi, said Mkhwanazi’s state salary was a confidential matter.
Another fund, another Liberian, PAGE 6 New order follows the bad old ways, PAGE 33