Mpumalanga’s premier introduced Dolphin president Ketan Somaia to Minister of Defence Joe Modise in connection with an arms deal with Kenya, writes Justin Arenstein
The Dubai-based Dolphin Group wasn’t just gunning for Mpumalanga’s game reserves when it nailed a secret R25- billion contract with the province’s parks board in 1996 – it also tried to buy large quantities of arms from the Ministry of Defence.
The secret weapons bid was facilitated by Mpumalanga Premier Mathews Phosa but failed when Dolphin president Ketan Somaia was unable to convince Minister of Defence Joe Modise that his offer was above board.
Phosa’s role in the incident will be questioned by the top-level African National Congress commission currently probing him and other party leaders for possible corruption linked to Dolphin and the Mpumalanga Parks Board.
The commission, which met with the ANC’s 32-member provincial executive in Nelspruit on Thursday, is expected to rule on Phosa’s political future when it tables its findings next month.
Phosa has repeatedly publicly denied that he was close to Somaia or that he had insight into the 50-year Dolphin deal that granted Dolphin a commercial development monopoly on Mpumalanga’s flagship game reserves.
He admitted last week, however, that he did meet Somaia at a series of hotels, restaurants and private dinner functions to discuss the deal at least two months before it was signed in November 1996. He refused to comment about the arms deal meeting this week.
Modise, who serves on the ANC commission, confirmed that Phosa set up a private meeting between him and Somaia at the exclusive Michelangelo hotel in Sandton in September 1996.
Phosa vouched for Somaia’s credibility at the meeting and introduced the multinational president as a major foreign investor into South Africa.
Somaia told Modise that he was acting on behalf of the Kenyan government and had been requested to buy a large but unspecified quantity of arms from South Africa.
He was, however, unable to produce a letter of introduction or other credentials and was rebuffed by Modise, who said he told Somaia the government did not work through third parties and would only accept requests for weapons from Kenya’s chief of defence or head of the army. “I was also very clear that any request would have to go through the arms control committee in Parliament and through Armscor. I expected him to take the matter up through the proper channels but never heard anything again,” said Modise.
Modise added that Somaia also displayed an interest in buying massive quantities of maize for resale in Kenya and had continued discussing the issue with Phosa when he left the meeting.
The Kenyan high commission in Pretoria denied that Somaia had ever been mandated to act on behalf of its defence ministry. The commission’s military attache, who refused to be named, insisted Somaia would have had to be accredited by the commission before he was allowed to approach any South African authorities.
“Kenya has very clear procurement policies and procedures for this kind of thing. There is absolutely no way that Somaia or anyone else could have been mandated to buy weapons on our behalf without letters from both us and the defence ministry,” said the attache. “Anything else was a con job.”
The incident isn’t Somaia’s only attempt to dabble in the arms trade.
The former Kenyan citizen is still being pursued by that country’s parliamentary public accounts committee for allegedly welshing on a R35-million paramilitary equipment contract signed with Kenya’s Police Training College in the early 1990s. The Kenyan government paid Somaia as the agent for a group of little-known British companies but never received any of the equipment it ordered.
Somaia refused to testify about the alleged swindle on four separate occasions when the public accounts committee reviewed the matter during the height of Mpumalanga’s Dolphin scandal in 1996. Somaia’s defiance prompted Kenya’s Parliament to call for the government to ban all business with Dolphin-affiliated companies.
Kenya’s ruling party representative on the public accounts committee, Suaeman Kamolleh, said parliamentarians would be meeting with President Daniel arap Moi’s office and the Ministry of Defence on January 26 to try to resolve the matter. Somaia refused to comment on the issue.
Phosa, who was present throughout Somaia’s meeting with Modise, was in hospital on Thursday but refused to comment on the issue earlier in the week. “The meeting’s got nothing to do with anyone. Why must this meeting be isolated from all other visits by potential investors?” asked Phosa.
His representative, Oupa Pilane, added that it is common for premiers to facilitate meetings for large potential investors or other influential people. – African Eye News Service