A controversial forensic audit report into embattled State entity PetroSA, which was to have been disclosed to the media and the public during the course of a meeting of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Energy, has been withheld.

At the meeting, last Tuesday, which was closed to the media and the public, committee chairperson Fikile Majola said he had obtained authorisation from Parliamentary authorities to close the meeting. The public meeting was scheduled to be addressed by the PetroSA board.

Further, opposition MPs claimed that the full report had been withheld.

The forensic audit report has been keenly awaited by MPs across the political spectrum and includes details of the R14.5-billion impairment suffered by PetroSA in the Ikhwezi offshore drilling project.

In October, Majola called for a comprehensive explanation with regard to what had gone wrong in the Ikhwezi gas project, which was an attempt to extend the life of the Mossgas plant by drilling new wells. He said the Department of Energy (DoE) did not have the right to deny the committee its right to see the forensic document.

However, at the committee meeting last week, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said only a brief summary of the findings has been released.

DA MP Pieter van Dalen accused the African National Congress (ANC) of using its majority to keep the forensic audit report a secret.

“ANC MPs used their majority to outvote opposition parties in order for the PetroSA forensic audit report to be withheld from the public,” charged Van Dalen.

He revealed that PetroSA had declared that the audit report contained commercially sensitive information, adding that it contained allegations against named individuals or implicated them in wrongdoing. “It appears that the ANC and its cadres are evading accountability for the colossal R14.5-billion in losses at PetroSA.

“There is a stench of political concealment underlying the information within the audit reports, and it is becoming clear that ANC cadres are implicated in the wrongdoing,” claimed Van Dalen.

He added that withholding the reports was a direct violation of the National Assembly rules as well as the Constitution.

“The DA argues that the presentation of a summary directly undermines transparency within the reporting requirements of State institutions. We will be writing to chairperson Majola demanding full sight of the underlying documents, failing which we will be escalating our request.”

Findings of a technical investigation into PetroSA’s Ikhwezi project showed that it had generated only 10% of the volumes forecast and produced gas from three out of five wells.

Some of the reasons given for the failure were a lack of proper risk mitigation, weak project governance development and a lack of proper risk mitigation.

First gas at Ikhwezi was achieved in December 2014 – 21 months later than planned – owing to the late arrival of the drilling rig, as well as other challenges.

Meanwhile, the DoE’s briefing to the committee on the nuclear build was also set to be a closed meeting, with no members of the public or media allowed to attend, Majola announced at the sitting.