The Public Protector, Lawrence Mushwana, has written to the Democratic Alliance (DA) to explain that he will not release a report on the merits of the case for reopening the Oilgate investigation because it is still the subject of a court case.
He also says in the letter, released by his office on Monday, that his inquiry into the merits of the case for reopening the probe were delayed by the refusal of the Sunday Times to cooperate
He explains that the findings of his original investigation are the subject of a high court application for review brought against him by the Mail & Guardian. ”The relief claimed includes that the whole matter should be reinvestigated,” Mushwana said.
Last May, the Sunday Times reported that Sandi Majali, Imvume chief executive, threatened to ”spill the beans” about how R11-million of public money ended up in the African National Congress’s 2004 election coffers. In doing so, he said it was in fact PetroSA that had approached Imvume for the donation, which was not what everyone had originally been led to believe.
The DA wrote asking for the investigation to be reopened a few days later.
Since then judgement has been reserved in the M&G‘s court case against the Public Protector. The M&G had challenged the accuracy of the Public Protector’s first report.
On Thursday last week, DA spokesperson Motlatjo Thetjeng said it had been nine months since the DA first wrote to Mushwana about the issue.
”Despite this, and an assurance in August 2007 that the subsequent report was due to be tabled in Parliament ‘soon’, nothing has happened,” Thetjeng said. ”As a consequence, the Oilgate scandal has been allowed to fester further — four-and-a-half years since the story first broke, [and] no one has been brought to book and the public’s faith in those institutions designed to protect their best interests continues to wane.”
Mushwana’s reply said: ”We have been advised by our legal counsel that it would be inappropriate to release our report on the merits of the request for a re-opening of the investigation, while we are awaiting judgement by the high court in the said application for review.” — I-Net Bridge