No image available
/ 23 September 2005
While the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> is under active police investigation, the subject of its exposés, Oilgate company Imvume Management, has suffered no similar misfortune. In late July and early August, the Freedom Front Plus and the Democratic Alliance tried to have criminal investigations initiated into Imvume.
No image available
/ 23 September 2005
The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> is being investigated by police national headquarters in an apparent bid to out the newspaper’s sources of information that Oilgate company Imvume Management diverted R11-million in public funds to the African National Congress.
No image available
/ 16 September 2005
PetroSA, the state-owned enterprise at the centre of the Oilgate scandal, admitted to the auditor general that it should have conducted a due diligence investigation before advancing R15-million to Imvume Management in December 2003.
As the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> revealed earlier this year, Imvume passed on R11-million of the advance to the African National Congress, which was suffering a cash-crunch at the time.
No image available
/ 8 September 2005
The most authoritative report yet on the $100-billion Iraq Oil-for-Food Programme describes a litany of abuses, including how Saddam Hussein’s regime bestowed lucrative oil allocations to buy international support. This is consistent with <i>Mail & Guardian</i>’s exposés on Oilgate company Imvume Management and its boss, Sandi Majali.
The <i>Mail & Guardian</i> will launch a high court application to review and set aside or substitute Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s findings on the Oilgate scandal — not only his criticism of the <i>M&G</i>, but on the substantive findings too.
Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana will release his report on the Oilgate saga on Friday. Complaints were laid by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+) and later by the Democratic Alliance after the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> revealed that R11-million of a R15-million advance payment on a state oil contract was diverted to the African National Congress in December 2003.
Imvume Management, the company at the centre of the Oilgate debacle, has launched a court action to force the Mail & Guardian to expose its confidential sources. On Thursday last week the company lodged an application in the Johannesburg High Court to compel the M&G, to disclose how the newspaper acquired information relating to Imvume’s bank account and ”the precise source” of such information.
A R1-billion crude oil tender — one of South Africa’s largest ever — went to African National Congress-linked company Imvume Management after an extraordinary series of interventions that suggest the tender was rigged. Last week we showed how the ruling party helped secure Iraqi oil allocations for its corporate pet, Imvume Management. This week we reveal how a tainted tender won Imvume the right to supply Iraqi crude to the South African state.
The African National Congress has misled the nation on the Oilgate scandal. Documents in the possession of the Mail & Guardian make it clear that Imvume Management — the company that channelled R11-million in state oil money to the ANC before the 2004 election — was effectively a front for the ruling party.
The events that led to the Oilgate saga: Iraq invades Kuwait; UN Security Council imposes comprehensive sanctions on Iraq, including lifeblood oil exports; UN approves Oil for Food programme to relieve civilian hardship — Iraq allowed to sell oil, with proceeds held in trust by UN and released only for approved humanitarian imports … See our timeline on how the ANC got involved …