Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana will release his report on the Oilgate saga on Friday.
Complaints were laid by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and later by the Democratic Alliance after the Mail & Guardian revealed that R11-million of a R15-million advance payment on a state oil contract was diverted to the African National Congress in December 2003.
Both parties asked Mushwana to investigate the circumstances under which state-owned PetroSA made the advance payment to Imvume on a shipment of oil condensate feedstock for the Mossel Bay gas-to-liquids plant. According to PetroSA this was done in the normal course of business in support of an empowerment company.
When Imvume defaulted on paying its foreign supplier, Glencore, the latter threatened to halt supplies to PetroSA. The oil parastatal then made a second payment of some R18-million, meaning the ruling party was effectively subsidised with public money.
The FF+ and DA asked Mushwana to expand his probe after further M&G revelations, including that Imvume had made payments to Bonga Mlambo, the brother of Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and towards renovations at the private residence of Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya.
FF+ spokesperson Willie Spies this week said the party has had no feedback from Mushwana. No attempt has been made by Mushwana’s office to contact the M&G, which broke the stories, for further information.
The DA earlier lodged a request under the Promotion of Access to Information Act for PetroSA to release copies of all documentation relating to the condensate transaction, but this was refused by the parastatal, citing provisions that allow for the protection of information relating to a third party, in this case Imvume.
PetroSA spokesperson Nhlanhla Ngwenya this week refused to say whether the same set of information denied to the DA had been supplied to Mushwana. “We complied with all the Public Protector’s requests,” he told the M&G, but refused to say whether this had included a full set of documentation. Office of the Public Protector spokesperson Selby Bokaba did not help either, saying: “I’m not in a position to answer that.”
Meanwhile it has emerged that Imvume made large repayments to PetroSA, totalling R4,66-million, between June 13 and June 25 following the M&G’s Oilgate exposÃ