SA gave $1.8m kick-back to Saddam

  1. Posted on Tuesday 25 August 2009 - 08:20
    Mernat
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    Mernat Mafirakurewa, AfricaNews reporter in Johannesburg, South Africa
    The late Iraq leader, Saddam Hussein, is estimated to have received more than US$1.8 billion in surcharges and kick back from South Africa on oil deals. The opposition Democratic Alliance is on the neck of President Jacob Zuma to re-open a probe into oil deals between South Africa and Iraq.
    saddam hussein
    Democratic Alliance parliamentary leader Athol Trollip on Monday said there is the need to reconstitute a commission on the role senior government officials played in oil deals with Iraq. “One of the key issues the Democratic Alliance will be asking the president to address is the Donen Commission and the findings it makes in its report,” Trollip said.

    Trollip said the DA would submit formal parliamentary questions to Zuma on all of these issues.

    According to local media reports the commission cast doubt on a submission by businessman Tokyo Sexwale, now human settlements minister, that he did not know that a company of which he was co-director had paid money to Saddam Hussein's government - in violation of the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme.

    A weekend newspaper reported that the Donen Commission, set up by former president Thabo Mbeki, found that Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe -- ANC secretary general at the time -- was privy to material information related to money paid illicitly to the Iraqi regime.

    At issue are surcharges on oil-for-food deals the regime demanded be paid into Iraqi government bank accounts, in violation of stipulations that all oil sales revenue go to a UN-supervised account to be used for humanitarian purposes only.

    According to the Sunday Times newspaper, Mbeki kept the report under wraps and Motlanthe, during his brief stint as president, also resisted calls to release it.

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