Paul Kirk
Two companies at the centre of the probe into the multibillion-rand arms deal have just added another lucrative deal to their portfolios. Futuristic Business Solutions (FBS) and African Defence Systems (ADS) are now the black empowerment partners of Agusta SpA, the company that won, in controversial circumstances, the contract to supply helicopters to the South African Air Force.
Despite billing itself as a black empowerment company, ADS is majority owned by a French company Thomson CSF.
The helicopter deal was given to Agusta whose product, inferior in the eyes of many defence experts, costs more than a North American competitor’s after Agusta signed a preliminary deal with FBS and ADS.
Despite offering its machines at roughly R3-million a unit less than Agusta, North American giant Bell Helicopter failed to win the South African helicopter contract. Bell refused to enter into a contract with a company with close links to Department of Defence arms procurement chief Shamin “Chippy” Shaik. Its bid was later rejected.
The Agusta/FBS/ADS deal was kept quiet until now.
FBS is a shareholder in ADS a company of which Chippy’s brother, Shabir Shaik, is a director and shareholder. Listed as directors of FBS are Lambert Moloi, a former Umkhonto weSizwe commander and lieutenant general in the South African National Defence Force, and Tshepo Molai. Moloi is the brother-in-law of former defence minister Joe Modise. Molai is, in turn, Moloi’s son-in-law.
Neither company had any links to Agusta until Agusta entered a bid to supply light helicopters to South Africa.
Contacted for comment, an Agusta representative referred the Mail & Guardian to the company’s new website and declined to comment further. The website press release, dated last year, simply announces the deals are to be signed.
The Agusta website also includes a mock-up of an Agusta helicopter in the paint scheme chosen for the air force.
This Sunday, marketing director of Bell Helicopter Dane Pranke confirmed on the M-Net programme Carte Blanche that “Chippy” Shaik, had “strongly suggested” that, if Bell wanted the helicopter contract on offer under the multibillion-rand arms deal, the company should enter into a partnership with FBS.
When Bell declined to do so after discovering FBS amounted to “no more than a receptionist and a fax machine” Bell lost the bid.
Contacted by the M&G this week in his Fort Worth, Texas, office, Pranke said he had been advised by legal counsel not to comment further on the arms deal. He said Bell was not planning to litigate, but would cooperate with any inquiry into the arms deal.
While Pranke would not talk, other sources in the company told the M&G that FBS demanded “administration fees” of about R1-million a month as well as a “very large” lump sum payment when Bell got the contract.
They further confirmed that they were told FBS was the only company acceptable to Chippy Shaik as an empowerment partner.
When the M&G attempted to contact Chippy Shaik for comment, switchboard operators claimed they had been given instructions not to put any calls from the media through to him. Shaik has apparently been banned from speaking to the press by Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota. Lekota himself was in a meeting at the time of going to press.
Attempts to contact Shabir Shaik were unsuccessful at the time of going to press.