Heads of South Africa’s Strategic Fuel Fund (SFF) stepped down after the Department of Energy, to which the Fund reports, objected to an allegedly unauthorized offer the SFF had submitted for the purchase of Chevron Corporation’s assets in the country, Reuters reported.

The fund has earlier announced it intended to buy a 75% stake in Chevron’s refinery and such downstream assets as retail service stations. However, the Department of Energy has since said that the SFF did not receive consent for such a bid and that it will conduct an investigation in the bidding, as Reuters informed in related reports.

The board of the Central Energy Fund Group, of which the SFF is a part, accepted the resignation of the fund’s chairman and its acting Chief Executive, Naija 247News wrote. In a statement, the board said that “the actions of SFF did not comply with governance requirements,” adding that, “the group further regrets the perceived misalignment with the Minister of Energy and the Department of Energy.”

Chevron, which has operated in South Africa for more than a century, said in January it would sell the 75% stake in its business in the country after making similar sales in Nigeria because of falling oil prices.