By Alec Hogg
So muddy are South Africa’s suspicion-laden political waters that many an eyebrow was raised when low profile Mmamoloko Kubayi was appointed Energy Minister to replace scandal-tainted Tina Joemat-Pettersson. Her elevation was overshadowed by the Gigaba finmin appointment in the recent cabinet reshuffle.
Yesterday, the former Joburg City Councillor (2006-2009) and Gauteng MEC for Post and Telecoms put those concerns to bed. She has made her first order of business to uncover exactly who sold SA’s Strategic Oil reserves – and send the crooks to jail.
In Cape Town yesterday Ms Kubayi instructed officials at the State’s Central Energy Fund to investigate the December 2015 sale of the country’s 10m barrels of crude oil reserves at an irrational time and price. International oil traders who unpacked the complex transaction for Biznews reckon those behind the foolish transaction trousered a staggering R1.5bn.
While in office, Joemat-Pettersson defended the transaction with a ridiculous suggestion that it was a “stock rotation”. Oil takes billions of years to evolve into its current form, so doesn’t deteriorate with age, nor require “rotation”. Kubayi’s appointment promises to be yet another whisper that winds of change are blowing in SA. Hope springs. – Alec Hogg
From Bloomberg:
By Paul Vecchiatto and Paul Burkhardt
(Bloomberg) – South Africa has found “glaring governance problems” related to a 2015 sale of the country’s crude oil reserves, Energy Minister Mmamoloko Kubayi told lawmakers.Kubayi’s department has told the Strategic Fuel Fund, which is responsible for managing the reserves and conducted the $280 million sale, that legal action will be taken, she said in Cape Town on Tuesday. The SFF, a unit of the Central Energy Fund that reports to the Department of Energy, had previously described the transaction as a rotation of stocks.
South Africa’s Auditor-General criticized the SFF for failing to safeguard the nation’s oil reserves when it sold 10 million barrels of oil in December 2015, when prices were at an eight-year low. The fund’s former acting chief executive officer, Sibusiso Gamede, resigned before the Department of Energy announced in July it would review contracts related to the sale.
The department last year started a separate probe into the attempt by the SFF to buy assets in the country from Chevron Corp.
Kubayi said she’ll seek advice on whether to appeal a South African court judgment that found the government didn’t comply with the constitution in seeking bidders for a nuclear-energy program. The Western Cape High Court last week ordered the government to hold public hearings and a parliamentary debate on the program.
“There are things we could have done better, such as public participation,” Kubayi said. “I am studying the judgment and will meet with the legal team tomorrow.”
The court set aside a 2015 decision to procure new nuclear capacity and nullified co-operation accords the government has concluded with countries including Russia, the U.S. and South Korea. Judge Lee Bozalek ordered the state to pay all costs.
