/ 8 May 2006

Court challenge interrupts oil-for-food inquiry

The Donen commission probing South Africa’s alleged involvement in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal adjourned its public hearings on Monday without having heard any evidence.

The commission is facing a challenge in the Pretoria High Court by one of nine people subpoenaed to appear before it.

”We cannot continue with questioning of witnesses with continuous interruption and legal action,” commission chairperson Advocate Michael Donen said before adjourning the commission’s first public sitting.

The individual, whose name could not immediately be confirmed, brought an urgent application in the high court on Monday morning to have certain of the commission’s terms of reference scrapped.

These included a regulation that witnesses before the commission may not refuse to answer questions possibly incriminating themselves.

The commission would wait for the court’s decision before resuming hearing witnesses.

The legal team of Sandi Majali and Imvume Management arrived at the commission with 10 boxes of legal papers on Monday morning.

The commission is to probe alleged illicit payments by South Africans of oil surcharges and kickbacks to the former Iraqi regime under the United Nations’s oil-for-food programme.

Its terms of reference include establishing the truth of allegations against eight South African companies and certain individuals named in the report of an independent inquiry committee established by the UN.

It also has to establish whether the conduct of any company or persons amounted to an offence that can be tried in a South African court.

The commission must propose actions needed in respect of any offence, contravention or violation, and steps to be taken to prevent persons or companies under South African jurisdiction from getting involved in sanctions-busting in future.

Imvume Management is one of four companies implicated in the report in the payment of oil surcharges. The others are Montega Trading, Mocoh Services SA, and Omni Oil.

Individuals implicated include Majali, Michael Hacking and Shaker Al Khafaji.

Four other companies were fingered in the payment of kickbacks — Ape Pumps, Flacon Trading Group, Glaxo Wellcome SA, and Reyrolle Limited.

The hearings are being held at a conference centre in the east of Pretoria. – Sapa