Pretoria | Wednesday
A SENIOR arms official on Wednesday ruled out the possibility that bias or manipulation could have influenced the final selection of suppliers in South Africa’s multi-billion dollar arms deal.
“There was no possibility of bias,” David Griesel, acquisition head of former state-owned arms manufacturer Armscor, told a public probe into alleged corruption surrounding the country’s $5.5-billion arms procurement deal.
Three statutory bodies are investigating allegations of widespread corruption linked to South Africa’s plans to buy aircraft, patrol boats and submarines from five European defence manufacturers.
Griesel, the second witness to testify at public hearings that started on Tuesday, explained that several teams worked independently of each other to evaluate the deals offered by bidders.
He said each team independently examined factors such as the military value of the products, industrial participation offers and financing arrangements.
The final selection was determined by consolidating the findings of the different evaluation teams.
“There was no space for any personal attempt to manipulate the process,” Griesel said.
All Armscor officials taking part in the acquisition process had to sign declarations that there was no conflict of interest in their involvement.
“I signed such a declaration myself,” Griesel said.
The probe was told by a senior military official on Tuesday that the cash-strapped Department of Defence (DOD) was not ready to deal with a multi-project defence package in the late 1990’s.
Rear-Admiral Keg Verster, the first witness to testify, said the defence department at the time did not have a policy to deal with more than one arms contract.
Verster, the director of weapons systems at armed forces’ headquarters in Pretoria, said the DOD was facing a range of uncertainties in the mid-90s, partly because of major budget cuts.
“We were finding ourselves in a position of debt with budget problems. We had contracts underway but no money to pay for them,” he told the public hearing, held at Baqwa’s offices.
He said the DOD’s debt was also renegotiated and serviced over four years. During this period, the department had to start planning for a comprehensive defence procurement package, Verster said.
“It was difficult to plan the funding of a strategic package within our budget,” he added.
“From our point of view it was not clear what the government wished to have,” he said.
The office of the public protector, the auditor general and the director of public prosecutions are conducting the investigation into the arms deal.
The probe began in January at the insistence of parliament after auditor general Shauket Fakie released a report saying proper procedures had been sidestepped in the tender process for the deal.
Among the allegations is one that the chief whip of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), Tony Yengeni, received a bribe, in the form of a luxury four-wheel drive, from a company with links to the deal. – AFP
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