>>16298769

>who knows how many people were killed in the process also

Don’t forget the murders of Prime Minister Dr. HF Verwoerd and Bernt Carlsson

Prime Minister Dr. HF Verwoerd assassinated on 6 September, 1966, and following changes occured about a month later.

Botswana (diamonds) – Independence day, 30 September 1966

Lesotho (diamonds) – Independence day, 4 October 1966

Namibia (diamonds) - in October 1966, the UN General Assembly decided to end the mandate, declaring that South Africa had no further right to administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa was to come under the direct responsibility of the UN (Resolution 2145 XXI of 27 October 1966). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Namibia

Dr Verwoerd was an implacable foe of the Money Power and wanted to achieve independence for South Africa. He commissioned the Hoek Report from Professor Piet Hoek of Pretoria University, and the report showed that the Anglo American Corporation controlled the English language newspapers and 70% of all companies in South Africa, while paying 10% of the tax.

http://reclaimingrhodesia.com/hendrick-verwoerd/

Bernt Carlsson who died in the Lockerbie bombing

United Nations Assistant Secretary-General & UN Commissioner for Namibia, Bernt Carlsson, who would have assumed control of the country until Namibia's first universal franchise elections had been held, was unable to attend the signing ceremony, being one of the 243 passengers killed when Pan Am Flight 103 crashed at Lockerbie on 21 December 1988.[7]

Following the UN Commissioner's death at Lockerbie, South African foreign minister Pik Botha went ahead and signed the Tripartite Accord on 22 December 1988. However, instead of handing control of Namibia to the United Nations, Pik Botha put the apartheid regime's Administrator-General, Louis Pienaar, in charge.

No investigation by the Scottish Police, the CIA, the FBI or the United Nations has ever been conducted into the evident targeting of Bernt Carlsson on Pan Am Flight 103, despite the branding of apartheid South Africa as a "terrorist state" by Governor Michael Dukakis, Democratic nominee in the 1988 US presidential election campaign.

https://wikispooks.com/wiki/The_How,_Why_and_Who_of_Pan_Am_Flight_103

“Bernt Carlsson and The Case of the Disappearing Diamonds [Namibia] Part 3” - https://youtu.be/IHIDaGrIsmY (embedded) [The Thirion report exposed the cartel]

Following Bernt Carlsson's untimely death in the Lockerbie bombing, the case against URENCO [the joint Dutch/British/West German uranium enrichment company] was inexplicably dropped and no further prosecutions took place of the companies and countries that were in breach of the United Nations Council for Namibia Decree No. 1.

https://www.serendipity.li/more/lockerbie_bombing.htm

Thirion Report – “The three hundred and fifty page mining report from Judge Thirion and his team paints a devastating portrait of the world wide De Beers diamond cartel and its behaviour towards Namibia.”

http://www.gordonbrownisinnocent.co.uk/thirionreport.html

>>16299738

>Namibia (diamonds) - in October 1966, the UN General Assembly decided to end the mandate, declaring that South Africa had no further right to administer the territory, and that henceforth South West Africa was to come under the direct responsibility of the UN (Resolution 2145 XXI of 27 October 1966). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Namibia

In 1973, the UN recognised the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO) as the official representative of the Namibian people

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Namibia

Oranjemund Journal; Swapo and De Beers: Are They Engaged to Wed? – dated 1989

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/10/world/oranjemund-journal-swapo-and-de-beers-are-they-engaged-to-wed.html

While Namibia remained under South African rule, De Beers Consolidated Mines Ltd. enjoyed a monopoly through its subsidiary, Consolidated Diamond Mines of South-West Africa.

The multinational corporation, whose lease here was not due to expire before the end of the year 2010, has been cultivating new ties with the South-West Africa People's Organization, or Swapo, which is expected to win the elections next month for a constituent assembly that will draft a constitution for the country.

Nicholas F. Oppenheimer, the deputy chairman of De Beers, met with the organization's representatives in London, a company executive said, and other officials from Swapo have twice been flown down from Windhoek, Namibia's capital, to view the diamond mining operation.

Oranjemund, the administrative center for diamond mining, is a company town visited by invitation only. Two hundred miles of southern coastline have been closed off to form a zone prohibited to outsiders that reaches up to 60 miles into the desert. The active surface mining area is surrounded by a wire fence and is accessible only through a set of electronically controlled doors.

Everyone leaving the site, including company executives, must submit to random X-rays for diamonds, which give off a telltale fluorescence.

Mining officials say they would be content with the kind of arrangement De Beers enjoys in neighboring Botswana, where diamond mines are jointly owned by the Government and the mining corporation.

Regardless of which government comes into power, we feel we are quite able to develop a meaningful track record, Mr. Stockill said.

[SWAPO has been ruling Namibia since 1994]

During the wave of decolonization in Africa, armed struggle was used by a number of liberation movements as a means to carry out their ‘inalienable’ right to self-determination. Such was the case regarding Namibia’s turbulent road to independence. Between 1960 and the attainment of its independence in 1990, the South West Africa People’s Organization (SWAPO) fought tenaciously for the liberation of Namibia from South African occupation. At the outset of its emergence, this movement maintained, ‘we have no alternative but to rise up in arms and bring about our liberation’.1 SWAPO had widespread international support, as evidenced through many United Nations (UN) General Assembly and Security Council Resolutions. Leading scholar on terrorism, David C. Rapoport classifies the events regarding movements of national liberation within the third ‘wave’ of modern terrorism, as this violence was a manifestation of the struggle to assert self-determination.2 In essence, it was a dimension of terrorism that was characterized by the resistance ‘against larger political power. . . specifically designated to win political independence or autonomy’.3 In this chapter, terrorism will be viewed as the deliberate use of violence or the threat of violence against civilians with the intent of achieving a specific ideological or political objective. Terrorism is also linked to generating an atmosphere of violence within a specific population.

https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203093467-19/swapo-united-nations-struggle-national-liberation-shaloma-gauthier-shaloma-gauthier

>>16299757

>[SWAPO has been ruling Namibia since 1994]

Correction. SWAPO has been ruling Namibia since 1990, its independence.

“Ivan Glasenberg, obscure billionaire no more” – Part 1

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-06-ivan-glasenberg-obscure-billionaire-no-more/

6 February 2013

In Zambia, unemployment hovers at about 80%, and 60% of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. Seven thousand kilometres north, you’ll find a wealthy Swiss hamlet called Rüschlikon, where a powerful South African-born commodity trader lives, close to the mega-multinational he runs. This is the story of Ivan Glasenberg, whose time of relative obscurity may have just ended. By MANDY DE WAAL.

Glasenberg is reportedly so fanatical about his privacy that, when Glencore listed, a top UK law firm Schillings was retained to try to prevent journalists from digging into the billionaire’s private life. Schillings – famous for its gagging orders – directed letters to media companies in England to warn editors to only focus on the business aspects of the listing.

But the listing changed all that, as did Glasenberg’s next big move – pursuing Xstrata in a $33-billion deal that would see the company run by Mick Davis become a wholly owned subsidiary of Glencore. The deal has seen its fair share of action and nasty turns, which is said to have destroyed the friendship that existed between Davis and Glasenberg. Davis was earmarked to run the merged company, while Glasenberg said he’d do what he loved best – vacate the CEO’s seat to get back to trading. But then followed a flip-flop that proposed Davis be ousted and Glasenberg was firmly positioned for the helm.

Although Xstrata’s website talks about the company’s ‘small beginnings a decade ago’, the diversified mining giant was founded as an infrastructure and electrics company called Südelektra in Switzerland in 1926. In 1990 the company’s business changed dramatically when the man who started Glencore – namely Rich – acquired the majority of the company’s shares, focused the business on mining and got rid of non-core interests.

Rich sold his interests in Südelektra soon after his bad zinc deal and the run-in with his Glencore boys, which saw him exit the company. At one stage Xstrata was an obscure investment vehicle, but a series of aggressive acquisitions changed all that. Today Xstrata, listed on the LSE and Swiss Stock Exchange, operates in over 20 countries and employs over 70,000 people.

Glencore currently owns a 33.65% share in Xstrata, which produces copper, zinc, nickel and vanadium. Xstrata today is a major coal producer and the biggest exporter of thermal coal. Interestingly enough, at the same time that Xstrata listed, it acquired all of Glencore’s coal assets in SA and Australia. “A string of deals saw Glencore become the world’s largest shipper of coal used by power stations,” writes Reuters. “A plan to spin off the coal unit was scrapped after the 9/11 terrorist attacks and Glencore instead sold the coal assets to Davis at Xstrata, in which Glencore at the time had a stake of about 40%.”

The Glencore listing propelled Glasenberg to the top of an elite rich list, but the Glencore-Xstrata monster merger will make him even richer. However, these events have brought with them the floodlights of a certain kind of fame. Gone are the days when Glasenberg was a trading great who was relatively unknown.

“Ivan Glasenberg, obscure billionaire no more” – Part 2

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-06-ivan-glasenberg-obscure-billionaire-no-more/

6 February 2013

To add fuel to this fire, the BBC recently aired a documentary on Glasenberg, Glencore and the tax quandary Rüschlikon is dealing with. The film opens with a black screen on which the question is written: “How much profit is fair?” This is followed with footage of the idyllic village with its pristine streets, houses and waterways.

“Real estate prices are booming, unemployment is virtually non-existent, and social problems are few and rare,” the voice continues. The documentary tells the story of how one of Rüschlikon’s five thousand or so inhabitants gave it a massive tax windfall. “However, Glencore’s copper mines in Zambia don’t generate similar tax windfalls for Zambians,” the makers of the film state. “The country has the third largest copper reserves in the world, but 60% of the population live on less than $1 a day and 80% are unemployed.”

The fact that Glencore taxes have made Rüschlikon so rich becomes darkly ironic when it is learned that the multinational was accused of evading taxes in Zambia. The charities received a leaked report which alleges Glencore increased costs in a mining operation in the copper-rich country between 2006 and 2008, as a means of tax avoidance. Glasenberg’s company denied the charges, but this didn’t stop the European Investment Bank freezing loans to the company because it had “serious concerns” about Glencore’s corporate governance. Back in Zambia, this case, which involved Glencore’s Mopani copper mines in that country, has become a rallying point for activists who believe the billions should be going to Zambian development.

But why should you care about Glencore? Glencore is the company that sources, produces, processes, refines, transports, stores, finances and supplies the stuff that makes all the other stuff that comprises our world. Whether its zinc, copper, lead, nickel iron ore, coal, crude oil, oil products, wheat, corn, sugar, cotton, biofuels, edible oils, or rice Glencore buys, sells, finances, grows, mines, makes or processes it.

The problem for South Africa is to fully understand what this merger could mean to local coal prices. The cost of coal directly affects the electricity rate given how dependent Eskom is on coal. Strangely enough, Eskom had significant concerns about the Glencore/Xstrata merger, citing that a giant merged entity would “influence domestic coal prices and take advantage of the utility’s supply shortfalls,” Mail & Guardian reported at the end of January 2013.

Curiously, Eskom withdrew its objections and the merger went through the competition authorities.

As Glasenberg stepped into Davos end January for the World Economic Forum (WEF), back home in Rüschlikon his postal box was shattered by an explosion that activists later claimed responsibility for. The anti-WEF agitators also claimed responsibility for a minor blast that shattered a window of the Zurich branch of Credit Suisse. The Glencore CEO is hurtling along a trajectory that appears to merge the apex of his success with proper spotlight, and detractors are starting to get angry.

“Gary Nagle to replace Ivan Glasenberg and guide Glencore into its greener future”

https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-12-06-gary-nagle-to-replace-ivan-glasenberg-and-guide-glencore-into-its-greener-future/

6 December 2020

The big focus will be on the group’s coal business, which Nagle has been running since 2018.

Ivan Glasenberg will step down next year as CEO of Glencore, which under his direction has grown into one of the world’s largest natural resource companies. He will be replaced by another South African, Gary Nagle, who will oversee the low-carbon transition the world’s top coal exporter has outlined.

Glasenberg, 63, has been at the helm of Glencore since 2002 and oversaw its megamerger with Xstrata, one of the largest such deals in mining history. Nagle, 45, has commerce and accounting degrees from Wits and is currently global head of Glencore’s coal industrial business. He will move from his Australian base to Switzerland early in the new year to work on the transition. South Africa, it seems, still produces top mining executives.

Glencore’s tentacles reach out across the commodity value chain, and its trading divisions set it apart from many of its mining peers – even when prices are depressed, commodities get traded, generating revenue. The company is one of the world’s leading marketers of crude oil. Its production assets include copper, cobalt, nickel, zinc, lead and ferroalloys such as chrome ore. It is a major marketer and trader of iron ore. The company also has recycling operations.

Glencore also said it was targeting net-zero emissions by 2050, a goal that has also been announced by BHP and Rio Tinto, while Anglo American is aiming for 2040.

>>16418776

>>16321313

>>16405077

>>16326145

>>16326294

>>16303484

>>16435203

>>16418776

Glencore CEO & List of Directors 2021 – Gary Nagle (Glencore Prodeco Operation, Lonmin), Gill Marcus (ANC Member), Cynthia Carroll (previously, Anglo American), David Wormsley (previously, Citigroup)

https://minedocs.com/22/Glencore-AR-2021.pdf

Gary Nagle

Joined Glenore in 2000; Chief Executive Officer since July 2021.

Gary Nagle joined Glencore in 2000 in Switzerland as part of the Coal business development team. He was heavily involved in seeding a portfolio of assets to Xstrata in 2002, in conjunction with its initial listing on the London Stock Exchange.

Mr Nagle worked for five years (2008-2013) in Colombia as CEO of Glencore's Prodeco operation. He then moved to South Africa to be Head of Glencore's Ferroalloys assets (2013-2018). Following that he was the Head of Glencore’s Coal Assets based in Australia. He also served on the Board of Lonmin plc from 2013 - 2015 and has represented Glencore on the Minerals Councils of Australia and Colombia.

Mr Nagle has commerce and accounting degrees from the University of the Witwatersrand, and qualified as a Chartered Accountant in South Africa in 1999.

Gill Marcus

Appointed in January 2018

Gill Marcus was Governor of the South African Reserve Bank from 2009–14.

She worked in exile for the African National Congress from 1970 before returning to South Africa in 1990. In 1994 she was elected to the South African Parliament. In 1996 she was appointed as the deputy minister of finance and from 1999 to 2004 was deputy governor of the Reserve Bank.

Ms Marcus was the nonexecutive chair of the Absa Group from 2007–09 and has been a non-executive director of Gold Fields Ltd and Bidvest. She has acted as chair of a number of South African regulatory bodies. From 2018 to 2019, she was appointed to the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into allegations of impropriety at the Public Investment Corporation.

Ms Marcus is a graduate of the University of South Africa.

Cynthia Carroll

Appointed in February 2021

Cynthia Carroll has over 30 years’ experience in the resources sector. She began her career as an exploration geologist at Amoco before joining Alcan. She held various executive roles there culminating in being CEO of the Primary Metal Group, Alcan’s core business. From 2007 to 2013 she served as CEO of Anglo American plc.

Ms Carroll is currently a non-executive director of Hitachi, Ltd (TYO: 6501), Baker Hughes Company (NYSE: BKR) and Pembina Pipeline Corporation (TSE: PPL).

She is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineers and a Fellow of the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining.

Ms Carroll holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from Skidmore College (NY), a Master’s degree in Geology from the University of Kansas and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University.

David Wormsley

Appointed in October 2021

David Wormsley worked in investment banking for 35 years. His last position at Citigroup was Chairman, UK banking and broking when he retired in March 2021. Mr Wormsley led a wide variety of corporate transactions in the UK and internationally, including IPOs and equity fundraising, both public and private, mergers & acquisitions and debt financing. During his period of management, Citigroup successfully acquired and integrated the majority of ABN Amro’s broking business. Under his leadership, the Citigroup UK M&A franchise was ranked between number 1 and 5 in the market.

Mr Wormsley is currently a non-executive director of Stanhope plc and a Governor of the Museum of London. He holds an economics degree from Downing College, Cambridge.

“The ANC’s Oilgate” – Glencore, Iraq ties (Part 1)

https://mg.co.za/article/2005-05-03-the-ancs-oilgate/

3 May 2005

In what may be the biggest political funding scandal since 1994, the M&G has established that South Africa's state oil company, PetroSA, irregularly paid R15-million to Imvume Management — a company closely tied to the ANC — at a time when the party was desperate for funds to fight elections.

The M&G possesses bank statements and has seen other forensic evidence proving that Imvume transferred the lion's share of this to the ANC within days. PetroSA this week said it was unaware of this. The ANC denied impropriety and said it was not obliged to discuss its funders.

The scheme unfolded in two stages. First, PetroSA management bent over backwards to pay Imvume the money as an advance for the procurement of oil condensate. Then, when Imvume diverted the funds to the ANC instead of paying its own foreign suppliers, PetroSA had to cover the shortfall by paying the same amount again.

A multimillion-rand hole remains in the parastatalis books. PetroSA has gone through the motions to recover the debt by suing Imvume — but most of it remains outstanding.

The effect of the entire transaction was that PetroSA, and ultimately the taxpayer, subsidised the ruling party's election campaign: a blatant abuse of public resources.

Imvume's role as an ANC "front company" first emerged in February last year when the M&G exposed its oil dealings with Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Imvume principal Sandi Majali obtained lucrative crude oil allocations from that regime when he travelled to Iraq with top ANC officials between 2000 and 2002. More recently, Imvume described its boss as ANC secretary-general Kgalema Motlanthe's "economic adviser".

But it was the diversion of the Petro-SA money four months ahead of the 2004 elections that is now lifting the lid on the funding scandal.

The deal puts the spotlight on PetroSA's management, which approved the payment; Imvume boss Majali, who asked for the advance and then issued the cheques to the ANC; and Motlanthe, who was Majali's ANC patron.

Imvume, now unable to pay its debts, was once the empowerment pin-up of the oil industry.

The contract that caused all the trouble was awarded by PetroSA to Imvume on October 15 2002 — the day President Thabo Mbeki publicly launched PetroSA as the national oil company.

Under the contract, Imvume — with the backing of Swiss-based resource trader Glencore International — was to supply PetroSA with regular cargoes of condensate, a feedstock for PetroSA's Mossel Bay gas-to-liquid fuels plant.

A number of condensate cargoes were delivered to Mossel Bay during 2003. The standard contractual procedure was for PetroSA to pay Imvume the full cargo price no later than 30 days after the bill of lading date (the date the cargo was loaded for shipment to Mossel Bay).

“The ANC’s Oilgate” – Glencore, Iraq ties (Part 2)

https://mg.co.za/article/2005-05-03-the-ancs-oilgate/

3 May 2005

Once it received payment from PetroSA, Imvume would immediately pay it on to Glencore, which sourced the cargo on international markets. Glencore paid Imvume a commission.

But in December 2003 the pattern was broken, and PetroSA has confirmed that standard procedure was departed from. The bill of lading date for that cargo was December 6 2003, meaning PetroSA's payment for the cargo — worth $10-million (about R65-million) — was due on January 5 2004. But Imvume's Majali asked PetroSA for an advance of R15-million (just more than $2-million of the $10-million) which was paid even before the cargo was discharged on December 22. PetroSA paid the advance into a different account to that usually used by Imvume for the contract.

Evidence in the M&G's possession confirms that Imvume Management's corporate account was credited with R15-million a day later, on December 19. And the M&G has seen forensic proof that within the next four days, Imvume's Majali issued a series of four cheques to the ANC — for R4-million, R3-million and R2-million (twice). These cheques, totalling R11-million, were all transacted on December 23.

This week Majali and Imvume did not dispute that the money was paid to the ANC, but claimed their support for the party was a "private affair".

The transfers to the ANC came four months before the elections, held on April 14 2004. A number of sources have described the party's financial straits around that time, claiming it had a bank overdraft typically running at more than R100-million.

When payment for the cargo became due to Glencore on January 5, Imvume failed to pay the company the R15-million advance — and, effectively, also withheld another R3-million from the balance owed.

Glencore turned to PetroSA for what it was owed, eventually threatening in February not to offload the next cargo. PetroSA agreed to cover the shortfall of R18-million, for fear that the Mossel Bay plant would run out of feedstock, leading to greater losses. Effectively, PetroSA paid R18-million twice — once to Imvume, and once to Imvume's supplier.

PetroSA maintains that the special circumstances of the empowerment environment largely excuse the actions of its management. It also denies that there was pressure from either the Minerals and Energy Ministry or the ANC to approve the advance to Imvume.

Circumstances, however, suggest that empowerment is not a sufficient explanation and that Imvume's ANC links played a role. These links were no secret in oil trading circles. A businessman active in the sector told the M&G last year: "It was talked about when they got tenders … that it was an ANC company … I certainly understand that ANC fundraising has a keen interest."

The advance payment to Imvume was irregular in that it was a departure from standard procedures. PetroSA maintains procurement policy allows for advance payments, but admits it "should have checked" whether the money was going into the usual account.

When the transaction with Imvume blew up in its face, PetroSA continued treating the company with kid gloves.

“The ANC’s Oilgate” – Glencore, Iraq ties (Part 3)

https://mg.co.za/article/2005-05-03-the-ancs-oilgate/

3 May 2005

On February 23 last year, four days after PetroSA had been forced to settle Imvume's debt with Glencore, Majali signed an acknowledgement of debt to PetroSA, agreeing to repay the R18-million plus interest within 90 days. He also ceded his company's revenue stream as security. But Imvume paid nothing in terms of that agreement.

Court records show more than a month passed after the expiry of the 90-day term before PetroSA issued a letter of demand. (See "PetroSA vs Imvume Management" download box on top right of this article for full documents).

PetroSA's choice of lawyer employed to pursue the demand raises further questions about PetroSA's seriousness of purpose.

The lawyer, Leslie Mkhabela, was previously Imvume's own attorney and still has a business relationship with Majali via their common interest in Forever Resorts Aventura, the privatised state leisure company. This raises conflict-of-interest questions.

Mkhabela maintained this week that this was not a problem as he had disclosed his business relationship with Majali to PetroSA.

The agreement signed between Mkhize and Majali was still not enforced. Instead new terms, much more favourable to Imvume, were agreed between PetroSA chief executive Sipho Mkhize and Majali in September last year.

Now PetroSA waived any claim to interest and agreed that Imvume could repay the capital amount in monthly instalments over four and a half years.

But again, in February this year and after paying only R1,33-million, Imvume defaulted, court papers show.

PetroSA took off the kid gloves for a little while, filing an application for summary judgement in the Johannesburg High Court. But the matter was postponed twice, and on a third court date — May 3 this year — PetroSA removed the matter from the roll. PetroSA this week claimed that this was to allow Imvume to remain operational, which would give PetroSA a better chance eventually to recoup the debt.

The ANC this week threatened legal action against the M&G without confirming or denying the flow of money to it.

Circumstantial evidence strongly suggests the ANC knew exactly where the funding was coming from. Between 2000 and 2002, when Majali was trading in oil allocations from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the ANC's Motlanthe repeatedly accompanied him to that country.

ANC treasurer general Mendi Msimang also went along on at least one occasion.

It is rumoured that the relationship between Majali and Motlanthe has cooled recently, but an Imvume brochure last year still described Majali as "economic adviser to the secretary general of the ANC". Describing the company's "winning formula", the brochure said Imvume had "access and influence on economic policy".

“The ANC’s Oilgate” – Glencore, Iraq ties (Part 4)

https://mg.co.za/article/2005-05-03-the-ancs-oilgate/

3 May 2005

How they responded …

PETROSA

The cornerstone of this deal is the policy adopted by PetroSA, which is a national initiative, black economic empowerment (BEE). PetroSA has a mandate to introduce hitherto disadvantaged South Africans into the oil and gas industry. PetroSA had a choice: to continue business as usual and exclude historically disadvantaged South Africans from the mainstream economy and prolong, if not propagate, the two-economies concept, or use our procurement muscle to bring fundamental change to the industry.

To procure a raw material referred to as condensate, the requirement was that the preferred supplier must have a South African partner who qualifies as a BEE candidate. This in effect introduced a major shift in the industry. We deliberately signed deals with the historically disadvantaged party to ensure that they were not "brought along" to the deal, but in fact they were the "principal partner" in the deal.

On the [High Court] case PetroSA brought against Imvume PetroSA suspended the case due to the fact that if Imvume were liquidated, there would be very little proceeds flowing into PetroSA from that exercise. Imvume is much better off remaining operational for PetroSA to be able to recoup the total sum owed to PetroSA as well as interest and the legal costs.

On Leslie Mkhabela [PetroSA's choice of lawyer to sue Imvume]

Mkhabela assured PetroSA of the following: he acted on behalf of Imvume during 2002/03. He later decided to resign from their business. While he acted for Imvume, he was invited into a consortium that submitted a bid for the Aventura Resort in exchange for his services. He retains no personal friendship with Imvume.

On PetroSA's actions and internal inquiry

At the request of Imvume, PetroSA effected a pre-payment into an account different from the normal account. We changed the account without considering that there may be negative ramifications. PetroSA has since tightened the controls around channels of communication and instruction from vendors on payments. PetroSA in its enquiry has not found any wrongdoing by any individual or individuals within PetroSA or external to PetroSA with line of sight to PetroSA. All the procedures and processes were followed. PetroSA honoured the letter of the contract. At times we assist suppliers to better deliver to PetroSA where possible. The procurement policy at PetroSA allows for payments of this nature.

On the double payment

Glencore held the product. Even though PetroSA did not have a contract with them, they had a ship in the harbour with our product. As we had already paid, PetroSA had to make a decision; to either pay them and deal with Imvume later — this would cost us $2,8-million — or refuse to pay and have our refinery cease operating for a minimum of 40 days, at the cost of $1-million daily. The PetroSA board ratified the decision.

Conclusion

It is the intention of PetroSA to recoup all the funds involved in this dispute. A liquidated Imvume would not generate the required proceeds for PetroSA. This would lead to an outright loss. PetroSA needs Imvume to pay back the money owed to PetroSA.