It is nearly two years since President Jacob Zuma announced the establishment of a commission of inquiry into the arms deal, but the commission, under the leadership of Judge Willie Seriti, is barely off the ground. It began its public hearings on August 5 but almost immediately had to adjourn for two weeks, a period in which the declassification of defence ministry documents will be decided.
The ministry brought a last-minute court application on the matter – heard on Sunday night.
This is far from a minor blip. The credibility of the commission turns on its ability to deliver a full and public account of the decisions taken by those involved in the procurement process. That will not be possible if the South African National Defence Force is able to hide behind in-camera hearings and secret documents. Nothing in relation to the basic specification of the equipment concerned can possibly be a plausible security risk.
There have been other – even more profound – problems, which lend support to the conclusion that this is a process set up for failure.
The most serious signs of disruption within the commission have been the resignations of three key members – a commissioner, a researcher and a senior investigator. It looked like these departures could render the inquiry unable to proceed, but the president simply "reconstituted" the commission and said it would proceed with Seriti as chairperson and one commissioner.
No account has been taken of the accusation, emerging from inside the commission, that there is a "second agenda" at the heart of its work and that Seriti himself is heavy-handedly ensuring that it is pursued, potentially to the exclusion of a more plausible
The "second agenda", it seems, must be something other than the commission's mandate, which is to reveal fully any wrongdoing in the arms deal that has cost South Africa in cash and in damaged political morality, if the agenda is to conceal some of the guilt, or deflect it on to more convenient parties. Unless Seriti moves quickly and forcefully to give the lie to these accusations, the commission's work, whatever its results, will always come out looking like a whitewash.
Former banker Terry Crawford-Browne, who began the Constitutional Court litigation that led to the establishment of the commission, has said that he feels the commission is pursuing just such an agenda. Because of his role in this saga, which began right at the outset, Crawford-Browne's voice is one that will be listened to when evaluations are made of the commission's progress. It will not be a voice that is necessarily heard by the president or the commission as it stands, unfortunately, which means that Crawford-Browne may find himself back in court.
Local politicians are not the only enemies of this process. Big foreign powers, major arms companies and the sleazy world of fixers all have an interest in seeing the process collapse.
Seriti still has a chance to get this right, but the tide in his favour is ebbing fast. We cannot afford another failure.