Mungo Soggot
The state oil company’s efforts to discipline its former chief, Kobus van Zyl, took a bizarre twist this week when the company decided to abandon his disciplinary inquiry and replace it with an internal probe.
The disciplinary inquiry’s head was from outside the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) and Van Zyl was allowed legal representation at the company’s expense. But he will now be tried by a state oil official and denied any representation.
The about-turn comes 19 months after Van Zyl was suspended for alleged impropriety on the instructions of Minister of Minerals and Energy Penuell Maduna, whose assault on the state oil company also triggered his fight with Auditor General Henri Kluever.
The minister’s credibility – already in question because of his handling of the SFF – suffered a major blow when he was ordered to apologise officially to Kluever in Parliament last Friday.
Maduna had to apologise for accusing the finance watchdog of being party to the theft of R170-million of oil – an allegation the minister gleaned from the same forensic probe used to justify Van Zyl’s suspension in March 1997.
The hearing into Van Zyl started last Tuesday and ran for two days before being postponed indefinitely after the SFF decided to recruit new lawyers.
The SFF said it had decided at a board meeting last Friday to change strategies and appoint an internal probe. The only explanation the SFF gave for its decision was that Van Zyl, whose legal bill is being footed by the company, had been deliberately stringing out his disciplinary hearing.
“In short, it [the company] came to the conclusion that Mr Van Zyl was abusing the process and the benefits being accorded to him,” said the chair of the SFF, Seth Phalatse.
Although Maduna justified his decision to suspend Van Zyl with the interim findings of his forensic audit, there have been suspicions from the start that the SFF general manager could have been the victim of a witch-hunt.
Those suspicions were bolstered last month when it emerged that the SFF’s lawyers had decided to ignore most of the charges drawn up by Maduna’s auditors.
The original charge sheet against Van Zyl contained 162 charges, many of which were fraud. Last month the state oil company’s lawyers pruned most of these, leaving five charges, none of which were fraud.
The charges that remain include insubordination, disobeying Maduna’s orders and breaking internal SFF rules. Most of the charges relate to the payment of a commission to an oil trader.
The SFF’s charge that Van Zyl has deliberately been delaying the hearing is ironic considering the numerous delays in its forensic audit of the company’s books – an audit which has so far cost the taxpayer at least R2,5-million.
After Van Zyl’s suspension in March 1997, Maduna’s department said the probe – on which Van Zyl’s fate hinged – should be finished in about six weeks.
On May 22 1997, the former chair of the Central Energy Fund, Don Mkhwanazi, told the Mail & Guardian: “I hope to get the report by mid-June. I was hoping the matter would end by the end of May. At times when people are digging, something leads to something.”
The final report by Maduna’s accountants was subject to numerous delays, and Van Zyl was first notified of a disciplinary hearing in January 1998.
The hearing then appeared to be delayed indefinitely pending the outcome of a probe into the state oil operation by the Office of the Public Protector, which Parliament appointed to investigate after Maduna made his R170-million allegation.
Shortly after the public protector hearing got under way, Maduna’s own lawyers admitted that it was impossible to justify the R170-million allegation.
Van Zyl’s attorney, Johan van Rensburg, said he had yet to be informed of the SFF’s decision, which, he said, prejudiced his client. He denied trying to string out the inquiry, saying that he had “never asked for a postponement of the present inquiry. We are astonished by this development. We will consider our position as soon as the SFF informs us of their decision.”
Maduna’s credibility was once again called into in question this week when Emanuel Shaw II – the Liberian politician who was a confidant of both Maduna and Mkhwanazi – lost his R7- million libel suit against the M&G.
Shaw’s exploits before and after he got a highly paid job at the Central Energy Fund were published extensively, characterising him as one of Africa’s most notorious rogues.
An inquiry by the public protector heard evidence that Shaw was closely involved in the attack on Van Zyl, and acted as a go-between for officials in the SFF and the minister. The inquiry resumes next month.