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/ 17 February 2006
The Donen commission, appointed by President Thabo Mbeki to probe abuse of the Iraq oil-for-food programme, will not investigate political bribery first reported by the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>. The Presidency announced the commission, led by senior counsel Michael Donen, last Friday.
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/ 3 February 2006
Sandi Majali’s controversial R65 000 loan for the renovation of Minister of Social Development Zola Skweyiya’s home was made only four weeks after a consortium, IT Lynx — of which he was a part — demanded that Skweyiya award it a stalled R400‑million tender. This new evidence casts doubt on Majali’s earlier excuse that he had no motive to try to bribe Skweyiya.
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/ 31 January 2006
On Wednesday, the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> filed a court challenge to Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s findings on the Oilgate scandal, seeking to have his report overturned and redone. Last July, Mushwana released the report that avoided probing parts of the scandal, but exonerated government and the parastatals involved.
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/ 20 January 2006
The Presidency has slammed the door on further questions about Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s trip to the United Arab Emirates.
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/ 9 December 2005
The government has yet to decide how to handle the fallout from the United Nations inquiry into the world body’s controversial Iraqi "oil-for-food" programme.
The report of the UN Independent Inquiry Committee, released in October, points fingers at thousands of companies for having allegedly flouted provisions of UN sanctions against the government of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
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/ 18 November 2005
Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) this week criticised Imvume Management and oil parastatal PetroSA over the Oilgate transaction that funded the African National Congress before last year’s elections. Scopa’s critique — the first official, public acknowledgement that the transaction was irregular — contradicted the National Assembly’s adoption a day earlier of Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report on Oilgate.
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/ 4 November 2005
Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla is to advise the government on how to respond to a report detailing abuse of the Iraq oil-for-food programme — while her party, using her daughter’s law firm, is suing the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> for publishing similar facts.
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/ 28 October 2005
Oilgate’s Sandi Majali used the names of both President Thabo Mbeki and African National Congress secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe when he sought crude oil from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, according to a United Nations probe. Majali bought millions of barrels of oil from Iraq under the UN Oil-for-Food Programme (OFF).
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/ 21 October 2005
Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils has moved to suspend National Intelligence Agency boss Billy Masetlha and two of his most senior managers, as the bitter succession battle in the African National Congress reaches into the highest levels of the country’s security apparatus. Masetlha, head of operations Gibson Njenje and counter-intelligence chief Bob Mhlanga received letters from Kasrils on Monday asking them to give reasons why they should not be fired.
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/ 14 October 2005
Minister of Intelligence Ronnie Kasrils this week lashed out at Billy Masetlha, the director general of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), over Masetlha’s "attack on the integrity" of the Scorpions. Kasrils fired the broadside at his DG in a statement released to the <i>Mail & Guardian</i>.