Investigators are battling to get access to records on the controversial R43-billion arms deal
Jaspreet Kindra and Paul Kirk
New names including those of South African politicians have cropped up in documents connected to the R50-million arms deal seized by Scorpion investigators this week in simultaneous raids on premises of individuals and companies in South Africa, France and Mauritius.
Sources close to the investigation say the names have not been previously linked to the arms procurement package and could not be revealed at this stage of the probe.
Scorpion investigators have been stationed in France and Mauritius for weeks in preparation for the raids. The focus of the Scorpions’ investigations were sub-contractors African Defence Systems (ADS), Futuristic Business Solutions (FBS) and Thales International, who were appointed by the defence secretariat to coordinate the acquisition and provision of systems for the South African navy’s four new corvettes.
In South Africa, the Scorpions conducted raids on offices and houses linked to Nkobi Holdings, which owns shares in Thales. The two companies jointly own ADS. Schabir Shaik, brother of Shamin “Chippy” Shaik, head of the defence department’s acquisitions and procurement programme, is chair of Nkobi Holdings, and his home and office were searched.
In France, the offices of Thales International and the residence of Alain Thetard, the managing director of Thomson-CSF Holdings South Africa, were raided. Thales International is the holding company of Thomson-CSF, which is partly owned by Nkobi Holdings. Thomson-SF will be providing systems for the navy’s corvettes.
FBS is partly owned by retired South African National Defence Force commander Lambert Moloi, who is former defence minister Joe Modise’s brother-in-law. Modise was defence minister at the time the contract was signed.
Scorpion sources, who believed their phones were bugged, feared that pressure would be applied by politicians because of the possible effect on the economy the discovery of any wrongdoing could have.
But while French and Mauritian authorities allowed South African investigators probing the arms procurement package to search the premises of arms merchants in their countries, the Department of Defence has been less than cooperative.
Using confidentiality clauses written into contracts between the South African state and arms suppliers, as well as apartheid-era legislation to protect state secrets, the department has seriously inconvenienced investigators by refusing to hand over copies of key documents.
Any investigator who wants to examine the documents has to travel to defence headquarters in Pretoria, during office hours, and consult them there. This includes members of the joint investigation team made up of teams from the Scorpions and the offices of the Public Protector and the Auditor General.
Sam Mkhwanazi, a spokesman for the Department of Defence, was at pains to stress to the Mail & Guardian that his department did its best to cooperate with the investigators, but that cooperation did not run to providing copies of contracts.
Said Mkhwanazi: “We came to an agreement that the documents were kept in a large strongroom and the investigators were given access to the strongroom at all times. However, because of the confidentiality clauses and security reasons, we could not provide copies.”
The inconvenience this caused the investigation team is perhaps best understood when the most controversial contract of all the purchase of the combat suite for the naval corvette is examined. This project generated more than 250 000 pages of documentation, including minutes of meetings, contracts and technical specifications, that needed to be studied by investigators.
ADS won this contract, although at parliamentary hearings into the arms deal in August this year, as well as at hearings conducted by the Public Protector, evidence was led by unsuccessful bidder C2I2 that it had been initially named as the preferred contractor, a claim the defence department did not challenge.
Chippy Shaik has consistently denied steering this contract toward his brother and has claimed to have recused himself from meetings where ADS was discussed. However, the M&G in August published minutes of a crucial meeting two years earlier where the ADS bid was debated; Chippy Shaik chaired the meeting. The Pretoria State Attorney threatened to prosecute the M&G for breaching security around the arms deal by publishing these minutes.
The main contracts between the state and arms producers have clauses allowing for cancellation if bribes are found to have been paid. These clauses would allow companies that lost out in the arms acquisition deal to seek to have contracts overturned in the courts if their competitors were found to have used dirty tactics.
Richard Young, the owner of Cape Town firm C2I2 Systems, told the M&G that he had been denied access to the contracts. Young has a “top secret” security clearance from the Department of Defence and is the person most likely to benefit if the clause is invoked and ADS disqualified.
While Dr Gavin Woods, the chair of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), was not available at the time of going to press, Raenette Taljaard, the Democratic Alliance spokesperson on the arms deal and a member of Scopa, told the M&G she was aware the investigation team, and specifically the Auditor General, had not been given free access to certain key documents, at least up to late August.
Although as a member of Scopa she had been shown the contracts, she had not been allowed to make copies nor to take the documents out of Parliament. She was also not allowed to discuss or divulge the contents. Scopa’s copies of the contracts were removed after a few days by procurement chief Chippy Shaik, said Taljaard, and taken back to the Department of Defence.
Said Taljaard: “I strongly believe that these documents need to be in the hands of the investigators. I also strongly believe that the public needs to know about certain clauses in these contracts. I am desperately hoping that someone mounts a court action to make these documents publicly available. The media should be able to publish them.”
The Directorate of Special Operations has declined to comment on the defence department’s rules for examining crucial documents, and has also denied the unit is coming under political pressure from the African National Congress.
Scorpions’ spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said individual politicians under investigation for criminal activities have sought to politicise actions taken against them.
He mentioned soccer boss Irvin Khoza, KwaZulu-Natal ANC leader S’bu Ndebele and former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni. Among the three only Yengeni’s name has been linked to alleged corruption in connection with the arms deal.
Yengeni, who was arrested last week, was quoted in City Press at the weekend as saying that the Scorpions, instead of pursuing crime syndicates and smugglers, were investigating and arresting ANC leaders. He raised questions about national prosecutor Bulelani Ngcuka’s role in allowing the Scorpions to pursue ANC leaders. Yengeni declined to comment to the M&G.