Penuell Maduna established "secretive channels of communication" with selected senior fuel industry officials shortly after becoming Minerals and Energy Minister in 1996. The claim emerged during Maduna's third day on the witness stand in Public Protector Selby Baqwa's inquiry into alleged irregularities in Strategic Fuel Fund finances, and whether or not Auditor-General Henri Kluever's reports on them were "correct and proper".
Maduna, now Justice Minister, was being questioned by Pearce Rood, counsel for Roy Pithey - former chairman of the Central Energy Fund, which oversees the Strategic Fuel Fund. Maduna said he had communicated with the officials privately to glean information about suspicious-seeming payments in an oil deal. Rood gave notice that he would make submissions on the "propriety of the secretive channels of communication" between Maduna and certain senior Strategic Fuel Fund officials, including Brian Casey and former general manager Kobus van Zyl.
Payments of a 7,5 cents-a-barrel premium to an Egyptian oil trader had been brought to Maduna's attention by Essop Pahad, then Deputy Minister in the Office of Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. "I was expected to find out what the justification for these payments was," he said. An acquaintance put him in touch with senior Strategic Fuel Fund official Brian Casey, with whom he had several private meetings in a bid to find out more about the premium payments.
When asked why he had not approached Pithey, who had a statutory obligation to answer such questions, Maduna said: "I cannot give a reason." When pressed on this by Baqwa, who wondered if it was "not incumbent" on him to approach Pithey, Maduna said, "Well, the fact is, I did not, and I cannot provide a reason." He said he had been in the Cabinet for only three-and-a-half months and may not have been "aware" of the statutory relationship between himself and the Central Energy Fund chairman. However, while he could not give a reason why he did not discuss the premium payments with Pithey, he was getting information from other officials such as Van Zyl and Casey. He added, "Perhaps it was because I thought he (Pithey) was implicated in these payments (of a 7,5c-a-barrel premium) that I decided not to go straight to him." When Baqwa asked him why he thought this, Maduna said, "Well, the suggestion had been made that he (Mr Pithey) had been told about the payments and had done nothing about them."
The two-and-a-half-day cross-examination of Maduna by counsel for Auditor-General Kluever, Eberhard Bertelsmann SC, ended on Thursday, but the Justice Minister will return to the witness stand when the hearing resumes on Monday for further cross-examination by counsel for other parties involved.
Source: IoL
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