Mail & Guardian journalists Stefaans Brümmer and Sam Sole, together with former staffer Wisani wa ka Ngobeni, have been named joint winners of the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s (Misa) John Manyarara Investigative Journalism Award for 2006 for their series of reports on the Oilgate scandal, Misa announced on Tuesday.
They share the award with Mabvuto Banda, of The Nation in Blantyre, Malawi, for his report on how a government minister used government funds for his wedding.
The M&G team also won the category for print news at the southern and northern regional Vodacom Journalist of the Year 2006 awards in Johannesburg on Monday. The overall gala awards ceremony — in which all regional winners are entered — will be held at Vodaworld in Midrand on October 29.
Brümmer, who had co-authored the exposés with Sole and Ngobeni, said: ”Oilgate was more than than a series of articles; it was a passion on our part and the part of the M&G to expose something that was so clearly wrong. It is good to have recognition of that, and it is good to have recognition that this very opaque issue of party funding is worthy of journalistic inquiry.”
The Misa award is named after founding Misa Trust Fund chairperson Judge John Oliver Manyarara. Misa inaugurated the award on May 3 2001 to encourage investigative journalism and award excellence in journalism in the Southern African region.
It recognises excellence in investigative journalism in any form of media in the Southern African Development Community (except the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mauritius and Seychelles) and carries a cash prize of €2 000 and a scholarship to the value of €10 000.
The scholarship is intended to be used to further the recipients’ professional training as journalists.
Oilgate
The Mail & Guardian‘s Oilgate series of exposés has had far-reaching consequences.
The series arose from the journalists’ previous work on the nexus of private business interests, party funding and government influence, as well as the defamation actions brought against the newspaper by the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and oil trader Sandi Majali following the publication in February 2004 of the article ”How the ANC fell for Saddam’s oil”.
According to the three reporters, it all started with a hint that Majali’s company, Imvume Management, had diverted taxpayers’ funds from state oil company PetroSA to the ANC ahead of the 2004 elections.
PetroSA had allegedly paid an advance to Imvume, which later transferred most of those funds to the ANC, after which PetroSA plugged the gap by paying the same amount and more again. The reporters ”followed the money” in a context that suggested a pattern of abuse of state power in the ANC’s favour similar to what they believed had occurred in the Majali deal in Iraq.
The journalists pursued sources including oil-industry players in the public and private sector; past and present Imvume employees; sources with access to documents that were available in Iraq; and sources in the government and the ANC.
Further documentary evidence to further back up their story came from the records of two defamation cases: a Promotion of Access to Information Act request that was lodged with the Department of Minerals and Energy, and a fax offering crucial evidence that was almost consigned to a rubbish bin before they came across it.
More evidence came from records of a stalled court application brought by PetroSA for a judgement against Imvume relating to the double payment the state oil company had made after Imvume’s cash diversion. Finally the three managed to obtain bank statements and further forensic evidence to prove that money had been paid to the ANC.
The first Oilgate scoop was published on May 20 2005, and soon other media got on board. A new angle for a follow-up report emerged from banking details obtained on Imvume, which showed that a further R50 000 had been paid to the brother of then minister of minerals and energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, and R65 000 to a building company that had been renovating the residence of Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya.
Imvume managed to obtain an urgent interim banning the M&G, and the editor and key staff had to rush back to the office after deadline to change the front page to comply with the court order.
There were several attempts made to prevent the M&G from further pursuing the story as well as revealing its sources. Through it all the three reporters never gave up any sources and even destroyed some of the documents in order to safeguard their sources. While dealing with all this they were putting together the second instalment of the Oilgate series — the real story behind Majali’s Iraq adventures — to demonstrate that Imvume had been acting as a front for the ANC when state resources were harnessed in Imvume’s cause.
‘Significant’
”The Oilgate series led to a significant, sustained outcry and the series became one of the biggest scandals in South Africa. The basic facts of the story were not challenged, but some have tried to put a different spin on not only the story but also the evidence provided,” Misa communications manager Werani Chirambo said on Tuesday.
”The series’ thoroughness resulted in adding a significant weight to public concern about the improper influence of narrow business interests in South Africa’s political and public life and it also appears to have contributed to formal concerns being tabled within the ANC about the extent to which the party risked selling its soul,” Chirambo said. ”Oilgate shook and is still shaking South Africa’s political circle, and its legal battles are far from over.”
On Monday, the Vodacom Journalist of the Year judges said the team’s Oilgate investigation ”demonstrated how media can play a very robust role in revealing the conflict of interests that can contaminate and undermine democracy”.
”The attempts by Majali to gag the story temporarily succeeded, but freedom of the media prevailed. The fact that this could happen and that the paper persisted demonstrates the importance of the story,” the judges said.
”The most outstanding attributes of the story is that it is very thoroughly researched, well written, demonstrates the highest levels of balanced ad fair reporting, shows depth of understanding of complex issues and is analytical. Oilgate will forever be remembered as a beacon of investigative journalism in South Africa.”
Other regional winners for the Vodacom awards included e.tv’s Nkepile Mabuse, Star photographer Steve Lawrence, SABC3 news reporter Sandy McCowen, Carte Blanche‘s Nicole Turner and Talk Radio 702’s Stephen Grootes.
Malawi
For the Misa John Manyarara award, Banda’s winning report was first published on April 16 last year in The Weekend Nation. He exposed how Malawi’s then minister of education, Yusuf Mwawa, used public funds to finance his private wedding at a posh hotel and tried to pass off the payment as a seminar for his ministry.
After Banda’s exposé the minister issued threats, sued the journalist and accused him and The Nation Newspaper of distorting facts, claiming he had paid for the wedding using his own funds.
Banda published a follow-up article that investigated how the minister had lied. He found that a cheque the minister had brandished at a news conference in an attempt to refute the earlier article was, in fact, never banked and that the minister had tried to alter receipts from the hotel where the wedding was held.
The story led to the expulsion of Mwawa from public office. He became the first minister in Malawi to be jailed for 12 years for theft, altering documents and abuse of office.
The report also led to the exposure of how the Malawi government had created a secret account where money was being secretly withdrawn from the consolidated account at the country’s Reserve Bank. The money was later used to sponsor the ruling Democratic Progressive Party.