Project Coast
Chris Oppermann
LAST year South African National Defence Force (SANDF) chief General Georg Meiring refused to release information about Project Coast before a special parliamentary committee.
Project Coast was approved in 1983 by the then minister of defence, Magnus Malan, and his colleague, finance minister Barend du Plessis.
Dr Wouter Basson, who held the rank of brigadier, was one of the main players in the Project Coast chemical and biological warfare programme.
The 10 shareholders in the Roodeplaat Research Laboratories – one of the front companies – became millionaires overnight when the South African Defence Force closed down the project at the end of 1992 and later paid the debtors, who were the shareholders, a total of R18-million.
Details of the multi-million-rand scam emerged in 1996 in Parliament, almost a year after Project Coast’s debts of almost R22-million had been written off by the SANDF.
The amount of taxpayers’ money paid out to shareholders was as follows:
* Mrs A Immelman and Mr D W Spamer got R2,3-million for an investment of R6 500;
* a Dutch Reformed Church minister, Van der Merwe, got R1,2-million for R3 500;
* Mr P Delport got R718 443 for a R2 000 investment;
* Mrs JJ Niewenhuis, Mrs J Davies and Mrs S Wandrag were, between them, paid out R498 702 for an investment of R1 666;
* Mr JJ Hendriks invested R1 000 and received R359 221;
* a company, Contresida, received R4,67- million for an investment of R13 000; and
* the Wynand Swanepoel Trust got R4,5- million for R12 495.
Another aspect of Basson’s alleged secret operations under investigation is Merton House, the multi-million-rand building in Pretoria’s plush Arcadia suburb.
Basson’s plans for the mansion outraged local residents, who claimed the building was to be used as a high-class brothel.
At the time the project was under construction, Basson claimed he was merely the middleman for a group of American doctors who were developing the property.
Building started in 1991, and even before the house was complete in 1993, it was put up for sale for R8,5-million.
The mansion was built by Waterson Properties with directors Christopher Marlow, Tjaart Viljoen and Sam Bosch.
Bosch is understood to be an important state witness in the present, and likely future, trials of Wouter Basson. Many important documents were allegedly seized from Bosch’s house shortly after Basson was arrested.
Basson is now being protected by intelligence agents and was rehired by the government after some of his covert activities had been exposed.
Deputy Minister of Defence Ronnie Kasrils defended the government’s action, saying it had rehired Basson to stop him giving valuable and potentially dangerous secrets about South Africa’s chemical and biological warfare programme to other countries.