New developments relating to the sale of almost all South Africa’s oil reserves in 2015, which was approved by the then Minister of Energy, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, go to show that it is in national interest for the entire matter to be laid bare.
The FF Plus will address a request in this regard to the Hawks and will once again ask the Public Protector (PP) to investigate the matter, seeing as the FF Plus’s previous request to the PP (30 May 2016) did not even get a response.
According to the Business Day (22 March 2018), the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and the Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) have approached the High Court in Cape Town with a request to have the oil sale transaction be declared unlawful and have it reversed.
Joemat-Pettersson approved the sale of 10,3 million barrels oil in December 2015 when the international oil price was very low ($28 per barrel). At the current exchange rate, it will cost more than R5 billion to replace the oil.
What makes the transaction suspicious is the fact that Joemat-Pettersson authorised the transaction without complying with the legal requirement of an open tender (Public Finance Management Act) and without the knowledge and approval of the National Treasury, the CEF and the SFF.
In the CEF’s court application, Joemat-Pettersson and Mr Sibusiso Gamede, the then chief executive officer of the SFF, were named as the people at the centre of one of the biggest heists of state assets as yet.
The names of the buyers are also still a secret. On 30 May 2016, the FF Plus addressed a request in terms of PAIA to the Department of Energy in order to obtain more of the details regarding the transaction.
The request was apparently approved and then the FF Plus was asked to pay the fee for the query, however, soon after that Gamede wrote a letter to the FF Plus in his own capacity saying that the information contains ‘trade secrets’ and information on ‘third parties’ that cannot be disclosed.
The FF Plus will ask the PP to provide answers for why they never investigated the matter, seeing as it is clear that there was likely extensive corruption with the transaction.
The FF Plus will not cease in our quest to uncover the truth regarding Joemat-Pettersson and Gumede’s secret transaction. Every tax payer in this country has the right to know who was involved in the sale and who benefited from it.
