Parliament’s minerals and energy committee on Wednesday adopted the public protector’s report on the alleged irregular payment of R15-million by PetroSA to Imvume Management — the backbone of the so-called Oilgate scandal.
This was despite objection from the Democratic Alliance, the Freedom Front Plus and the Independent Democrats, who argued that the scope of Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report had not been wide enough.
”It’s not what the public protector has said but what he has not done that is our concern,” DA MP Hendrik Schmidt said.
He and other opposition MPs queried the fact that PetroSA had been willing to pay R15-million into a different account and in a different currency (dollars) than was normally used.
”And why did they wait 30 days after the 90-day lapse of the debt before they issued a letter of demand to Imvume?” Schmidt asked.
Imvume told PetroSA it needed the money as bridging finance to pay Glencore, an oil-supply company, for a shipment of oil that was four days away from harbour.
Imvume, however, failed to pay Glencore, and PetroSA was forced to pay another R15-million to Glencore directly. Part of the first payment (R11-million) was alleged to have been used for the African National Congress’s election campaign last year.
Mushwana in his report found no evidence of wrongdoing.
He reasoned that the ANC and Imvume were not public entities and therefore did not perform public functions and as such were not part of the government.
He said the state had no shareholding in Imvume and so the ”alleged payment was clearly made by one private entity to another and could therefore not have had any bearing on state affairs”.
But FF+ MP Willie Spies asked the committee to consider that Mushwana may have been wrong.
”What we need to accept is that the public protector is a human being and as such able to make mistakes. We need to know that his decision is correct and also perceived to be correct,” he said, calling for more time and information before adopting the report.
But ANC MP Sam Louw urged the committee to adopt the report, saying enough time had been spent on deliberations.
”I therefore move to adopt this report and close this matter for further discussion,” he said.
He attacked parties for questioning the public protector’s report.
”How dare they call this report a whitewash? [The Office of the Public Protector] is a Chapter Nine institution,” he said.
Schmidt argued, however, that the public protector had relied solely on explanations from political and administrative heads and did not attend to key allegations. He said Mushwana had failed to consider all the evidence available before issuing his report.
Committee chairperson Nkosinathi Mthethwa said despite the opposition’s reluctance to adopt the report, no one had ever stated that the report was factually incorrect.
He said the committee’s brief was to investigate if state funds had been incorrectly used by PetroSA.
”We want to know if the transaction made by PetroSA to Imvume as a private entity was legal. What Imvume did with the funds is not part of our brief,” he said.
He said the brief was met.
”We have a report and nobody has been able to contradict the report,” he said.
The report was adopted. — Sapa