/ 26 October 2011

Radebe to reveal scope of arms deal inquiry to Parliament

Radebe To Reveal Scope Of Arms Deal Inquiry To Parliament

Justice Minister Jeff Radebe will announce the terms of reference for the new arms deal inquiry in Parliament on Thursday, his spokesperson said.

“This is expected to unlock answers to a number of questions that include the scope of the inquiry as well as powers of the commission,” Tlali Tlali said in a statement on Wednesday.

The announcement was expected to be made at 11am.

On Monday, President Jacob Zuma announced that Supreme Court of Appeal Judge Willie Seriti would chair the commission of inquiry into the arms deal.

Deputy Judge President of the High Court in Pretoria Willem van der Merwe, and Judge Francis Legodi of the same court, would be the other two members of the three-person commission.

They would “investigate allegations of wrongdoing in the strategic defence procurement packages, generally known as the ‘arms deal’,” Zuma told reporters.

The deal has dogged South Africa’s politics since it was signed in 1999 after then Pan Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille officially raised allegations of corruption relating to the deal in Parliament.

Zuma himself was once charged with corruption after his financial adviser Schabir Shaik, who had a tender to supply part of the requirements, was found to have facilitated a bribe for Zuma from a company which was part of the deal.

Shaik is on medical parole after being sentenced to jail for 15 years, and the charges against Zuma were withdrawn shortly before he became president due to alleged interference in the investigation.

Vindication
The Mail & Guardian has previously reported that the inquiry represents a stunning vindication for anti-corruption campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne, who has spent the past decade and all of his own money in a series of legal bids to have the contracts cancelled.

Crawford-Browne’s most recent court application formed the backdrop to the president’s decision, it appears.

The day of the announcement, Thursday, was the same day Zuma’s lawyers were due to file affidavits dealing with the substance of the corruption allegations detailed by Crawford-Browne in his legal papers, advocate Paul Hoffman, who was appearing for Crawford-Browne, told the M&G.

“I suspect their own legal team told them they had a difficult case to answer — and that recent events, such as disclosures in Sweden, made it more so.

Perhaps they decided strategically that it would be preferable not to go on oath,” he said.

In their initial legal response to Crawford-Browne’s demand the president’s lawyers declined to deal with the corruption allegations in any detail.

Instead, the strategy was to argue that the application should be dismissed on technical legal grounds.

Buying time
In May, just as the case was about to be argued, the president’s lawyers asked the Constitutional Court for more time.

They wanted to deal with the substantive claims made by Crawford-Browne and backed by additional evidence from Richard Young, a defence contractor who has also battled to have the corruption allegations properly investigated.

The government was given until July 28, and a further extension until September 15.

Crawford-Browne told the M&G, when the inquiry was announced in September, he wanted no part of any puppet inquiry or sweetheart commission.

“We are calling for something modelled after the TRC, with five retired judges and with the authority to grant indemnity if people offer full disclosure — but also with the power to cancel the contracts and recover money,” he said.

The cost of the arms deal, which was signed in 1999, is estimated to have been in the region of R60-billion.

It included the purchase of frigate warships, submarines, helicopters, jet fighters and trainers — but the cost crowded out other defence spending and left little over for operational expenses.

The promised industrial offsets — or counter-trade to which the arms sellers committed themselves, appear to have been largely illusory.

More costly, perhaps, has been more than a decade of institutional damage incurred by investigations and attempts to sweep the allegations under the carpet, notably via the destruction of the Scorpions.

Scopa
Professor Gavin Woods, who heads the anti-corruption unit at Stellenbosch University and who was involved in the initial attempts by Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to probe the arms contracts, welcomed the commission’s creation.

Woods eventually resigned from Parliament after sustained political interference in Scopa’s work.

SA public ‘was never brought the truth’
“Its increasingly evident that the first investigation was compromised. The South African public was never brought the truth,” Woods said.

“I can only hope that the commission comprises people who will get to the bottom of the matter.”

He said the timing of the probe coincided with developments in investigations by British, German and Swedish authorities that suggested corruption had taken place.

Current Scopa chair Themba Godi said: “I must say it came totally out of the blue; I had no whiff of it. I have always maintained that unless we probe this thoroughly and justice is seen to be done, [the arms deal] will continue to cast a cold shadow over the political landscape.” — Sapa and M&G

For more news on the arms deal visit our special report.