Oil scandal looming
2003-05-30 23:15
Bun Booyens and Barnie Louw
Cape Town - The official opposition has tabled an urgent application at parliament to confront President Thabo Mbeki in the national assembly with questions about a giant oil transaction between South Africa and Nigeria.
This follows a newspaper report that a Nigerian oil contract, which was awarded to the South African government in 1999, is in the possession of a private overseas company.
The company, called the South African Oil Company, is registered in the Cayman Islands and has a concession to sell 55 000 barrels of Nigerian oil every day... a concession which allegedly belongs to South Africa.
The Mail & Guardian reported on Friday that an oil company with the identical name in the Cayman Islands, also exists in South Africa. These "twin companies" were established the same month as the oil contract with Nigeria was concluded and the board of directors comprise many friends and family members of ANC politicians.
Tony Leon, leader of the DA, handed a written request to Dr Frene Ginwala, speaker of the national assembly, to ask Mbeki an "urgent parliamentary question".
Leon says: "Although the allegations (about the oil contract irregularities) have not been proven, this parliamentary procedure is necessary. Serious questions now exist about possible misuse of power and corruption. I think the president should address the matter as soon as possible."
UDM leader Bantu Holomisa asked for a commission of inquiry to investigate the transaction and to establish if someone has tried to conceal irregularities.
"The commission should also be mandated to check if any government official or family member directly or indirectly has benefited," Holomisa says.
The oil transaction was concluded in 1999 after Nigeria's newly-elected president, Olusegun Obasanjo, cancelled the country's 41 existing oil marketing contracts as part of an anti-corruption drive.
In August 1999 Nigeria's state-controlled oil authority awarded new contracts, among them three government-to-government contracts... to Kenya, Ghana and South Africa.
In the same month South Africa's newly-appointed minister of minerals and energy, Phumzile Mlambo Ngcuka told journalists that Nigeria had given South Africa the contract to market 55 000 barrels of oil a day.
Her department, in conjunction with the department of foreign affairs, would have investigated ways and means to ship the oil.
At the same time, a company with the name South African Oil was registered in Pretoria... identical to the one already registered in the Cayman Islands.
Since that time, the profit of the oil contract, estimated at about R30m a year, has been channelled to the island company and not to the South African company.
Reports say 75% of the company belongs to a Kase Lawal's Camac Group of Houston, Texas. It is not known who are the owners of the remaining 25% and according to the Cayman Island laws, the names do not have to be divulged.
The South African Oil Company directors include Nomusa Mufamadi, the wife of Sydney Mufamadi, minister of provincial affairs and local government,
Hintsa Siwisa, brother-in-law of Makhenkesi Stofile, Eastern Cape premier, and Zwelibanzi Nzama of the ANC's Fundraising Trust.
President Mbeki is in Nigeria at present, where he is attending the swearing-in ceremony of Obasanju's second term. A spokesperson for Mbeki's office said he would react on his return. He will answer questions in the national assembly on Thursday.