Stefaans Brmmer
Guest Author
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/ 23 September 2005

Imvume escapes the heat

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.

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/ 16 September 2005

PetroSA: We should have …

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.

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/ 8 September 2005

Oilgate: the global setting

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.

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/ 29 July 2005

Mushwana’s Oilgate report due soon

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.

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/ 28 July 2005

Imvume sues M&G on sources

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.

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/ 22 July 2005

Oilgate: How R1bn tender was ‘fixed’

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.

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/ 15 July 2005

Trading principle for profit

This is the story of how South Africa’s ruling party offered solidarity to Saddam Hussein in exchange for crude oil — and how state resources were used to help the party in this ambitious fundraising project. The story is important for it reveals not only how the party subordinated principle to profit, but also how it engaged in business through what was effectively a front company.