Jaspreet Kindra
Several African National Congress members have approached Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota with claims that some members of Parliament received bribes to influence the R43-billion arms procurement package.
Lekota said after a media briefing in Johannesburg last week that he had directed the members to pass on any relevant information to the auditor general and other investigative authorities.
Lekota, who is also the ANC’s national chair, is the first within the party’s leadership to publicly voice the possibility of money changing hands in exchange for defence contracts.
However, he expressed his faith in members of the Cabinet, including President Thabo Mbeki, who had been involved in negotiating the contracts.
He said: “We remain firmly convinced that with the process itself, its integrity cannot be faulted that does not mean there has not been any wrongdoing.”
Lekota said there was always the possibility that “someone, somewhere at a wedding, a funeral or a party in the middle of the night”, without the knowledge of those involved in the process, had passed on money in an attempt to win influence.
When asked by a reporter whether this “someone” could have been a Cabinet member or a government official, Lekota replied: “It is not impossible.”
Lekota went to great lengths to explain on the importance of clean governance, highlighting the fate that has befallen the deposed Philippines president, Joseph Estrada, who was toppled last month following charges of corruption.
“The South African population will not judge us by our track record or our history. When they go to the polls, they will judge us by our present actions,” he said.
“A globalising world is not going to protect corruption.”