The Mail & Guardian reports in its latest edition, available on Friday, that the African National Congress has misled the nation on the Oilgate scandal.
Documents in the possession of the M&G make it clear that Imvume Management — the company that channelled R11-million in state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election — was effectively a front for the ruling party.
The relationship between the ANC and Imvume is central to Oilgate.
When the M&G broke the Oilgate story two months ago, ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama claimed Imvume was an independent firm from which the ANC was perfectly entitled to accept donations.
“We do not ask donors where their money comes from,” he said.
The point was echoed by ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe, who said: “A distinction should be made between the ANC and private companies.”
Both officials suggested the transaction was an arm’s-length donation from an ordinary private concern — which meant the ANC could not have known that the R11-million came from the parastatal PetroSA, which had prepaid Imvume for part of a supply contract.
But the documents, some marked “Top Secret” and which the M&G gathered over three years, make a mockery of that defence. Instead, they show how close the ANC and Imvume really were.
They show that as early as 2001, Motlanthe and, to an extent, party treasurer Mendi Msimang were intimately entangled with Imvume boss Sandi Majali.
The evidence suggests that together they hatched an ambitious project to raise millions of rands for the ANC by obtaining lucrative oil allocations from Saddam Hussein’s regime under the United Nations Oil for Food (OFF) programme.
OFF was an exception to UN sanctions that allowed Iraq to export oil to pay for humanitarian needs.
In turn, Motlanthe and Majali, on behalf of the ANC, would extend political solidarity to the Iraqi dictator and campaign for the lifting of sanctions.
The documents include a letter from Motlanthe to the Iraqis, confirming Majali as the ANC’s designated representative for this project.
Lawyers acting for the ANC and its officials have declined to comment and warned of further legal steps against the M&G.
The ANC sued the M&G for defamation after an initial exposÃ