It seems state oil company PetroSA has failed to fully comply with a Cape High Court order to provide the Democratic Alliance with documentation related to the so-called ”Oilgate” scandal, the DA said on Wednesday.
”A preliminary analysis of the documents provided suggests that PetroSA has not fully complied with the court order and has failed to provide all the relevant documentation,” DA spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said.
The DA’s request was straightforward and explicit. It requested ”all recorded information and documentation relating to the transaction and contracts between PetroSA, Imvume Management and Glencore International”.
However, a number of the documents handed over made reference to correspondence and documents which appeared not to have been included in the documentation handed to the DA, he said.
The DA was in the process of confirming this.
”Once we have compiled a comprehensive archive of all the documents — both those handed over and other documents referred to in the information provided to the DA — we will make our findings known.”
If it was the case that PetroSA had failed to comply and withheld information from the DA — and in turn from public scrutiny — the DA would take the matter forward in the appropriate way, as PetroSA would be in violation of its agreement with the DA and the subsequent court order — that it fully comply with the DA’s request, Schmidt said.
Also on Wednesday, the DA and Freedom Front Plus both posted on their respective websites documents related to the scandal.
FF+ spokesperson Willie Spies said the documents handed to the DA by PetroSA were now in the public domain, making it possible for the FF+ to also make documents in its possession available to the public.
The documents published by the FF+ on its website included an apparently deceitful invoice of Imvume Management issued to PetroSA for an advance payment for ”314 598 06 barrels of crude oil” for R15-million, dated December 18 2003.
Imvume did not use the money to pay a creditor, Glencore International, for the crude oil condensate, donating R11-million to the African National Congress for its election fund instead.
Spies said the FF+ was also concerned that black economic empowerment was increasingly being used by the ANC as ”a cloak for corruption and self enrichment”, following recent media reports on suspicions that Imvume was ”nothing other than an ANC front company”.
Schmidt said the DA had posted all the PetroSA documents on its website under ”Campaigns”. — Sapa