Stefaans Brmmer

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.

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.

Outgoing minister of minerals and energy Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka ascends to the second most powerful position in the country with questions on the Oilgate saga still unresolved — and new evidence has emerged that throws doubt on her claim that she adopted a strictly hands-off approach to PetroSA, the parastatal at the centre of the controversy.

The man who presided over South Africa’s biggest housing scandal eight years ago is back — as special adviser to Minister of Housing Lindiwe Sisulu. Saths Moodley resigned as executive chair of the Mpumalanga Housing Board in May 1997 as the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> exposed what became known as the Motheo scandal.

The Scorpions are probing whether part of a R100-million sweetener paid to a Saudi Arabian agent by arms manufacturer Denel has flowed back to South Africa in the form of kickbacks. Possible recipients included in the inquiry are former directors and officials of Denel, the late defence minister Joe Modise, the African National Congress, and well-known ANC fund-raiser and a confidant of Nelson Mandela, Yusuf Surtee.

Kojo Annan, son of United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, extended his lobbying efforts to South Africa on behalf of a company that became a prime contractor to the world body. Details of the younger Annan’s local visit are contained in a 144-page report released this week.

Vusi Pikoli’s surprise appointment to the top job at the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) followed shortly after a corruption probe prevented one of the leading contenders for the post, former Limpopo premier Ngoako Ramatlhodi, from being admitted to the Bar, effectively ending his bid.

In most circumstances we find racial profiling — making a decision about an individual based on statistical assumptions relating to his or her race — despicable. But is it any better when class becomes a determinant in situations where our very humanity is at stake? When one person is comforted and another lies shivering on the pavement?

Did Thebe Tourism Group (TTG) attempt to steal a lucrative joint venture from a partner or is the company simply defending its rights against a jilted collaborator? This appears to be one of the questions before the Cape High Court in the liquidation of Thebe Retail, a company founded in 2002 by TTG, and Charlotte Steere, a Johannesburg businessperson, to develop a series of tourist shops.

The mustiness of masonry corroding in the sea air seeps from the Durban High Court building where Schabir Shaik is on trial. A stately, though ageing structure, it symbolises both permanence and decay. This trial is in part about the kind of South Africa we are constructing — one of decay or of rights-based permanence.

Every year the <i>Mail & Guardian</i> publishes its annual "report card", which assesses the performance of each of the members of the Cabinet and awards them a symbol. The 1998 report card included an assessment of Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, in her capacity as then-minister of housing, to which she strongly objected.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=119926">State funds ex-minister’s court battle</a>

Bulelani Ngcuka’s bid for a swift release from the post of National Director of Public Prosecutions has been a shock to some, but the move was a long time coming. The <i>M&G</i> reported in September that he had been on the point of leaving earlier last year, but had been persuaded by President Thabo Mbeki to stay on. We unpack the whys and the wherefores.

The men behind the alleged Equatorial Guinea coup plot represent a who’s who of South Africa’s mercenary market — but key players also have links to the American and British security establishments. The <i>M&G</i> looks at the security links of the alleged plotters arrested last Sunday.

The Hefer saga may be over, but Mo Shaik faces a charge brought by a top former spy that he made up evidence to suit his thesis that National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy.

Deputy President Jacob Zuma is well on his way to getting the all-clear from the state’s ethics watchdogs, even though interest declarations he has made are beset with controversy. Public Protector Lawrence Mushwana’s report on Zuma’s interests, released by Parliament last Friday, substantially clears him, but only on allegations Mushwana chose to investigate.

The focus of the battle between the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the deputy president this week shifted to the Hefer Commission of Inquiry in Bloemfontein, where NPA head Bulelani Ngcuka faces spying and abuse-of-power claims. But developments in Parliament show that Zuma himself is far from off the hook.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22143">Commission lures ANC factions into open</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=22144">No love lost at Hefer commission</a>

A maintenance shutdown foul-up at PetroSA’s (the Petroleum, Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa) Mossel Bay refinery — formerly Mossgas — may be costing the plant up to R19-million a day in lost production, observers estimate. The DA suggests losses will eventually total R800-million.

Peter Marais and David Malatsi took few precautions — no Swiss bank accounts, no anonymous envelopes stuffed with cash — to cover their alleged corruption in the Roodefontein property scandal, it appears from a draft charge sheet against both disgraced politicians.

Associates of Liberia’s ex-president, Charles Taylor, are selling off that country’s stately ambassadorial residence in Pretoria — but there are questions about whether the revenue will reach Liberian government coffers.

Sharp new questions over conflicts of interest have emerged about the controversial private company that secured a "government-to-government" deal to buy Nigerian crude oil.
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15749">DA wants Scorpions to probe oil deal</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=15713">We told you so</a>
<li><a class=’standardtextsmall’ href="http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=14927">Oil scandal rocks SA</a>

The air crash that killed South Africa’s disgraced cricket captain Hansie Cronje might not have happened if the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) had properly maintained its instrument landing system at George airport, an affidavit handed to the Office of the Public Protector alleges

Durban Roodepoort Deep, the mining firm racked by allegations that executive chairperson Mark Wellesley-Wood took his corporate clean-up campaign beyond the limits of the law, was hit by another high-profile resignation in the third week of March.

Minerals and Energy Minister Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka’s cancellation of a corrupt oil contract has been vindicated in a London out-of-court settlement. But her husband, National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka, still has to prosecute the men who allegedly paid and took bribes to facilitate the deal.

Cyril Kern, the Cape Town-based businessman who loaned Ariel Sharon $1,5-million, shared business interests with a man implicated in a funding scandal involving the Israeli premier. Kern appears to be well-connected to business circles that have been funding Sharon.

South Africa’s Vodacom got into bed with politically well-connected partners in Mozambique before it won a licence to operate the country’s second cellphone network. Now one of those partners has been dragged into the controversy surrounding the assassination of journalist Carlos Cardoso.

The Scorpions’s investigation into Deputy President Jacob Zuma’s alleged R500 000-a-year arms bribe demand resurfaces in court next week when an alleged frontman for hidden interests faces charges of failing to produce evidence.

Massive pressure from the political Left and behind-the-scenes intervention by, among others, trade union leader Zwelinzima Vavi and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) this week persuaded the government to reverse its hard-line stance on street protests at the World Summit.

There are new questions about links between the ANC, the presidency and the so-called anti-HIV/Aids drug Virodene.

South Africa has missed another deadline, and broken yet another promise, to formally recognise the exiled government of the Western Sahara, Africa’s last colony. Out of step with its own constituency, the ANC-in-government has repeatedly delayed recognition.

The finance chief of state synthetic fuels giant Mossgas has been suspended after an investigation into a R250-million contract with Siemens Business Services, a local subsidiary of the German multinational.

In a first for the state oil sector, South Africa is buying R1-billion worth of crude oil from Iraq to replenish strategic stocks. But some industry sources question the deal, saying it "smells" of another oil scandal. Iraq has been under international embargo since the 1990 Gulf War.

YOUR sensitive computer files, e-mail communications and Web-surfing habits may not be safe from the state’s prying eyes