Parliament’s portfolio committee on minerals and energy this week endorsed the findings of Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana, clearing PetroSA of any wrongdoing in its advance payment of R15-million to Imvume Management.
Ruling party MPs were scathing about what they said were “baseless” allegations about the scandal, but the committee will request further documents from the parastatal oil firm, which could shed more light on its decision to make the advance payment to Imvume, one of its suppliers.
Imvume donated the bulk of the advance (R11-million) to the African National Congress and made smaller payments to Bonga Mlambo, the brother of then minerals and energy minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and to a builder doing work on the home of Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya. When Imvume failed to pay its own supplier, Glencore Resources, PetroSA was forced to stump up the cash a second time in order to get Glencore to release a shipment of condensate that was needed to continue operations at its Mossel Bay plant.
In a widely criticised report, which the Mail & Guardian intends asking the Johannesburg High Court to review, Mushwana argued that his mandate to investigate the misuse of public funds did not allow him to investigate what happened to the money once it was in the hands of a private entity such as Imvume, as a result, he did not probe any links between the company and the ANC.
The committee adopted the report in the face of objections from opposition MPs in the Freedom Front Plus, the Democratic Alliance, and the Independent Democrats, who argued that there had been insufficient opportunity for debate.
“It’s not what the public protector has said, but what he has not done that is our concern,” said the DA’s Hendrik Schmidt.
FF+ MP Willie Spies asked for more time to consider the report, and asked the committee to consider that Mushwana’s interpretation of his mandate could have been wrong.
Spies also argued that in light of the M&G’s pending court action, the report was sub judice, and the committee should delay its findings.
Attorneys for the M&G have briefed senior advocate Wim Trengove on the paper’s review application.
But committee chairperson Nkosinathi Mtethwa pointed out that Spies, along with DA leader Tony Leon, had initiated the public protector’s investigation.
“It is a report emanating out of a formal complaint by a member of this committee, and we are not going to wait for the Mail & Guardian,” he said.
Mtethwa was also scathing about what he said was a “misleading” report in the M&G last week outlining how the ID’s Lance Greyling had been stymied in his efforts to get either the minerals and energy committee or the standing committee on public accounts to request documents from PetroSA.
“The committee does not have these documents,” Mtethwa said, but he also added that the committee would now request them.