Mangoma arrested over fuel deal

Elton Mangoma, Energy and Power Development minister of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party, was this morning picked up by three plain clothes police officers at his government offices, Chaminuka Building. “The reasons for his arrest are not clear,” MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said. But it is widely believed to be in connection with a US$6 million fuel deal made privately in December with a littleknown South African company, NOOA, which the State Press here allege was made outside State Procurement Board procedures. The company was supposed to supply 5million litres of diesel, at 88 US cents per litre but allegedly supplied only 20 percent of the supplies. Mangoma says all the fuel was delivered.

Mangoma issued a wide-ranging, 22-item statement last week denying any wrongdoing after the State Press pushed for an investigation of transactions the minister authorised with NOOA, including an alleged unilateral decision to unbundle State oil procurement firm NOCZIM into two firms, PetroTrade and the National Oil Infrastructure Company.

It is alleged NOOA only managed to supply only 20 percent of supplies and yet government had made a full payment. But Mangoma told the news conference last week that the rest of the fuel was offloaded the previous week and alleged there were people out to tarnish his reputation. Mangoma alleged that “bureaucracy” had stalled the deal deliberately to raise a storm for him.

“Delays were encountered in transferring the funds taking six days in total,” Mangoma told reporters at Chaminuka House, the same place he was picked up Thursday morning. “However, when the first train came with fuel, it spent over 10 days at Beitbridge without being cleared. This was clearly the work of a bureaucracy determined to create a story. The fuel was only offloaded last week after the intervention of the minister of Finance.”

The minister also blamed political opponents for trying to exploit the NOOA situation, faulted the bureaucracy which facilitated the stock deal for failing to provide complete information and heaped criticism on the State Press. The Herald and ZTV has alleged that “the State could have been prejudiced of US$4,4 million” by the minister. Mangoma’s permanent secretary Justin Mupamhanga told the parliamentary portfolio committte on Mines and Energy three weeks ago that government had been “hoodwinked”.

Mangoma strenously rejected these claims.

“During December 2010 and January 2011, there was virtually no fuel to sell available for Zimbabwe,” Mangoma told the news conference. “NOOA petroleum of South Africa offered 5million litres of diesel. The US$6 million was then paid into a NOCZIM account and transferred into the Petrotrade account as NOCZIM was no longer functional. This was then handled as a purely administrative matter. In a meeting attended by the director Petroleum, the permanent secretary and myself, we considered it prudent to procure, the only fuel that was available at that time using the Strategic Reserve Levy. The Strategic Reserve Levy will be used in future to purchase fuel to cover market failures.” Mangoma is said to be held at the Serious Fraud division at Harare Central Police Station.