So … you think Mkhwebane is fighting White Monopoly Capital, do you?

Amid all the headline-grabbing fanfare of Bosasa, Guptas, Busisiwe Mkhwebane and state capture, I wouldn’t blame you if you haven’t been giving much ongoing thought to how South Africa sold off all its strategic oil reserves for a pittance to Glencore and Vitol, the world’s largest commodity traders, and one smaller company, the Taleveras Group.

(No one else was invited to tender to buy the oil, by the way. And if that sounds dodgy, it’s because it is.)

So allow me to remind you about something we should all still be more than a little outraged about, and because the story still hasn’t ended, New Dawn or not.

In its most recent newsletter, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) summed up the sorry affair and pointed out that SA civil society may once again have helped to stave off a crime of grand corruption cooked up in the oil pot in which our government and the biggest of big business regularly burn our behinds.

A quick recap: Between December 2015 and January 2016, South Africa’s entire stockpile of crude oil reserves – 10.3 million barrels – was sold by government’s Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) to these international traders for about $300 million.

It was a first for any country in history (not a good kind of first of the Chris Barnard or Neil Armstrong variety; more a bomb on Hiroshima kind of first).

“The International Energy Agency recommends that countries keep 90 days of net imports in their strategic stockpile to prevent an economic breakdown in case of energy emergencies,” Outa points out. “If the Oilgate deal is not reversed, South Africa will be left with nothing.”

Oil reserves – obviously enough – allow a country to keep the economy turning if something dreadful goes down. You know, like a war, or an asteroid hitting us (which almost happened last week, by the way), or just one tweet too many about North Korea from Agent Orange in the White House.

Understanding this need for planning for the worst is as basic as a children’s fable about a squirrel storing nuts for the winter.

But South Africa made the sale “without a proper procurement process; without the knowledge of the Central Energy Fund (CEF) Board; without National Treasury’s involvement; and at a time when the cost of crude oil was low”.

What’s worse, the entire strategic fuel reserve was sold at $28 per barrel, $10 below the market price at the time and less than half of what it costs today.

The authorities at the time claimed the deal was a “rotation of supply”, but global traders and other experts pointed out this made zero sense.

According to Biznews, no one with good intentions could have sold oil stocks at the most unfavourable price imaginable and because replacement oil bought for delivery in the future would already be more expensive the moment you disposed of your current oil. The big companies stand to lose R4.5 billion if this sweetheart deal is reversed.

It will surprise no one that the greasy figure of then minister of energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson approved this deal.

When the scandal broke in 2015, the outcry caused the CEF to launch a civil case to declare it illegal. Since then, the case has dragged on in the courts, while the oil sits in storage in Saldanha Bay.

Things finally came to some sort of head earlier this year, when Glencore filed a court application to stop the CEF from filing supplementary affidavits with the high court – information Outa alleges is deeply incriminating. The CEF then filed an affidavit to halt Glencore’s application.

The key takeaway is that there’s information about this deal Glencore doesn’t want entered into the court record and made public. There are things going on here they don’t want you or me to know about.

Curious, hey? This is the kind of information you’d imagine an office like the public protector’s would be keen to scratch around about.

Glencore appears to be so keen to keep things quiet that they have reportedly agreed not to proceed with the court case at all.

I don’t really know what’s going to happen next.

If you consider how spectacularly the South African public appears to have been ripped off in this scam, it beggars belief that our public protector has been silent about it. Where are the YouTube videos, Busisiwe, talking about Ivan Glasenberg and his rich friends?

I realise I’m ending this column with a bit of whataboutery. But in this case it really does seem justified, and I’m not the only one who’s been wondering why Busi has been chasing pension payout windmills when there are some truly gigantic dragons out there to slay.

So here’s a question and a challenge for all of you fans of our dear public protector and her supposed personal crusade against White Monopoly Capital. Does it get any whiter or more capitally than Glencore and Vitol? The former is often called the world’s largest mining company and Vitol was earlier this year reported to have an even larger financial turnover in Switzerland than the mighty Glencore.

So, Busisiwe is fighting White Monopoly Capital?

Is she, now?

Citizen digital editor Charles Cilliers

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