South Africa’s official opposition Democratic Alliance is taking the the Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa (PetroSA) to court because R11-million of taxpayers’ money has still not been accounted for relating to the Oilgate scandal, the party’s chief whip Douglas Gibson said on Thursday.
At a press conference in Cape Town he said PetroSA had admitted to Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) recently that its internal financial procedures had been faulty.
“We need to get to the core of the Oilgate transactions and find out why R11-million of public money was illicitly funnelled to the ANC [African National Congress] ahead of the 2004 elections in violation of the law and against PetroSA’s internal regulations.”
The DA had already served legal papers on PetroSA relating to its decision “not to comply with the DA’s request in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act for access to all documentation about the transactions between PetroSA and Imvume Management in the Oilgate affair”.
Gibson said his party believed the matter was “compellingly in the public interest”.
He noted that a request by DA MP James Selfe to the ANC to return the funds had been met with a refusal to do so.
“PetroSA’s refusal to accede to our request and subsequent appeal for the information relating to Oilgate is particularly serious.
“As a state-owned, taxpayer-funded parastatal we believe PetroSA’s attempt to cover-up and conceal the facts needs to be challenged in court.
“Today we are making our correspondence, our application to the Cape High Court and the relevant affidavits available to the media and the public. PetroSA must respond by filing papers with the court, after which a date for a hearing will be set.”
The DA’s application is done in the name of Selfe, the federal chairperson.
The DA also wrote to Imvume asking for information about the transaction — which saw R15-million being transferred by PetroSA to Imvume at the end of 2003. Its attorneys, Barry Aaron and Associates in Sandton, Johannesburg, replied that “our client denies that the documentation and information is required for the exercise or protection of any of your rights” and that the information requested was “proprietary, private and confidential to our client”.
Former chief of staff in DA leader Tony Leon’s office, Gareth van Onselen, wrote to Imvume Management and said although Imvume would normally have the right to protect its right to confidentiality concerning its trade secrets, financial and commercial interests in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act, sections 46 and 70 stated that mandatory disclosure in the public interest must be granted if the disclosure of the record would reveal evidence of “a substantial contravention or failure to comply with the law” and if “the public interest in the disclosure of the record clearly outweighs the harm contemplated in the provision in question”.
Gibson said the DA’s legal action would focus first on PetroSA rather than on Imvume, a private company.
“We will deal with this one at a time,” he said. – I-Net Bridge