ANGELA QUINTAL, Cape Town | Thursday
TONY Yengeni on Thursday announced his resignation as his party’s chief whip in Parliament, but said he would remain an ordinary MP pending his trial for corruption arising from investigations into the multi-billion arms deal.
His successor will be decided upon at a meeting of the ANC’s national working committee (NWC) on Monday.
At a press conference at his office, Yengeni said he had voluntarily taken the decision after he was charged and arrested on Wednesday.
He repeated he believed the allegations against him were part of a political witch-hunt.
On the controversial arms deal, Yengeni said: “I don’t have any doubts about the arms deal. I have no sleepless nights. It was the best process. Most transparent and very professionally run.
“I don’t see for the life of me how and who can manipulate that process one way or the other.”
It was important for the multi-agency investigation to take place, and if anybody was found to have done wrong the law should take its course.
Yengeni was flanked by deputy chair of the ANC’s 22-member political committee in Parliament, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, who denied reports that it had recommended to the NWC that Yengeni should resign.
Yengeni told reporters he could not continue being the chief whip of the majority party “with those kinds of charges hanging over my head and an impending trial”.
This decision was fair to the ANC and to his family.
“I shall now be better able to focus at preparing myself for the trial.”
Yengeni repeated he was innocent of all charges, and would prove that in court.
Asked if his resignation meant a salary cut, he said: “I’m going to take a big dive in my salary from chief whip to the backbench”.
According to Parliament’s salary grading system, the chief whip of the majority party earns a minimum annual total package of R396 843, as opposed to R302 280 for an ordinary MP.
Yengeni said he had not spoken to his co-accused Michael Woerfel, the suspended MD of European Aeronautics Defence System in South Africa.
“It’s ages since I’ve had anything to say to him.”
Yengeni said he had always dismissed the allegations against him with the contempt they deserved.
“I went even further to say it was a political witch hunt. I still insist I’m innocent, and I will prove it in court.”
Asked whether his arrest was part of the witch hunt, he said: “The allegations that are flying around and which eventually lead to this, are nothing else but a witch hunt.
“But of course, as a disciplined ANC member, I will go through that trial to prove my innocence.”
Yengeni said if the ANC in its wisdom decided to appoint him to any other position at whatever point, that would be its decision.
He said his resignation was spurred by his arrest on Wednesday, but that for some time — long before the allegations against him surfaced — he had asked the ANC leadership to relieve him from Parliament.
“That was just after the 1999 elections, because I thought I wanted to do something else outside Parliament, but the leadership insisted that I stay and I stayed.
“But with the events of yesterday, I believe it is no longer possible, and so I took the decision.”
Meanwhile, Scorpions representative Sipho Ngwema confirmed on Thursday morning that the charges against Yengeni flowed from the multi-agency investigation into the controversial arms deal.
He said Yengeni had not influenced the eventual awarding of the contracts, although he had pretended he would use his influence.
According to the charge sheet, Yengeni faces an alternate charge of fraud, because he is alleged to have pretended he would use his influence “when he had no intention to use his power or exercise his influence in that way”.
He is accused of corruption for receiving a discounted luxury Mercedes 4X4 from Woerfel, whose company wanted a stake in the stake in the arms deal.
Ngwema said Justice Minister Penuell Maduna’s comment that Yengeni’s case had nothing to do with the arms deal was made in the context that he did not believe Yengeni had influenced the eventual awarding of the arms contracts.
Maduna was among the government spindoctors who moved quickly on Wednesday to try and salvage the integrity of the controversial arms procurement process, maintaining Yengeni’s impending prosecution was not a sign that the deal itself was corrupt. – Sapa
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