Oilgate is a South African political scandal in which the petrol company Imvume Holdings was accused of paying R11 millions of state money to the ruling African National Congress shortly before the 2004 General Election. The money had been received from the state oil company, PetroSA, as part of an advance payment for a quantity of oil condensate that had been procured from Glencore, an international company.[1]
The scandal broke in an article written by the newspaper Mail & Guardian. Imvume was able to get a court order restraining the Mail & Guardian from publishing the article, but was subsequently outmaneuvered when the Freedom Front Plus, an opposition political party, revealed the same information in Parliament. Under South African law, political groups making representations in parliament may not be subjected to legal action for the content of their statements. Since the information was now in the public sphere, the Mail and Guardian was able to print the article.
Over the same period, Imvume Holdings was embroiled in the United Nations (UN) Oil-for-Food scandal. Although Oilgate proper refers to the party funding scandal, it is frequently linked to the Oil-for-Food debacle: the Mail & Guardian alleged that the ANC had been a key player in the Oil-for-Food deals, thus demonstrating that close and possibly inappropriate links existed between Imvume and the ANC.[2][3][4]
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