[Tony Leon of the DA had some scathing comments to make about the ANC’s oilgate scandal. Jan]

While opposition parties in Parliament were baying for strengthened investigations into the Oilgate scandal, the African National Congress’ (ANC’s) alliance partners appeared to be adopting a highly cautious approach to the latest claims.

Congress of South African Trade Unions spokesman Patrick Craven said the federation was studying the latest media revelations of the ties between Imvume Management and the ANC and could not comment.

The South African Communist Party (SACP) declined to comment, saying there had at this stage been no report from its alliance partners.

A tripartite alliance meeting was scheduled for early this week, but might not happen as SACP secretary-general Blade Nzimande is in China and may not return in time.

The Mail & Guardian newspaper reported on Friday it had documents showing that Imvume had been deliberately set up as a front company to raise funds for the ANC, and had been doing so since during the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq in the late 1990s.

Both the Democratic Alliance (DA) and the Freedom Front Plus (FF(43)+) have demanded expanded probes into the matter.

DA leader Tony Leon called for a judicial commission of inquiry, and FF(43)+ minerals spokesman Willie Spies called for the scope of public protector Lawrence Mushwana’s probe to be expanded.

Mushwana’s report on the FF(43)+’s complaint over Oilgate is expected before the end of this month.

This investigation centres on claims that Imvume was the conduit for some R11m from the state oil company PetroSA to the ANC’s election coffers.

The FF(43)+ is still facing a legal challenge from Imvume for using parliamentary privilege to expose some of the information surrounding the Oilgate matter.

The party claimed in the assembly last month that the brother of former minerals and energy minister Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka had received cash from Imvume head Sandi Majali.

“Parliamentary privilege protects parliamentary members from legal action that originates from any announcement made to Parliament,” Spies said.

“Matters are now so well documented and the responses are so evasive and threadbare that nothing other than an independent judicial commission of inquiry with powers of search and subpoena will satisfy the public disquiet that there is indeed something fundamentally rotten at the heart of the governing party,” Leon said.

The M&G article said the close relations between Imvume and the ANC suggested that the company was a front for the ruling party, and benefited from relations with Saddam Hussein’s government.

Source: AllAfrica.Com
URL: http://allafrica.com/stories/200507180131.htm…/p>