The findings of the marathon investigation into the arms deal in many ways represent a remarkable achievement for South Africa. It is extremely rare for any country to peer with any seriousness into the murky world of weapons contracts. Many Western nations are content to sweep such matters under the carpet.
For this, and the apparent rigour of the primary investigation, the government and the investigators deserve credit. The report contains fascinating, and embarrassing, detail about how nearly every aspect of the arms package was riddled with procedural and technical problems. Tenders were not properly conducted, bidders were allowed to tinker with bids after submitting them, goalposts were moved after tenders were under way and minutes explaining crucial decisions were lost.
The problem is in the gap between the meat of the inquiry and its superficial recommendations. One of the most controversial branches of the investigation, into the corvette systems, exemplifies this discrepancy. The investigation backs C2I2’s Richard Young, exposing a litany of procedural problems surrounding the award of the contract to Schabir Shaik, but offers anodyne findings and no recommendations.
It has been suggested that the people who wrote the findings and the final summary did not talk to those who did the real fact- grubbing. This is plausible, especially considering the tensions said to have developed between the sleuths and their masters. Wally van Heerden, senior investigator from the Auditor General’s office and a driving force behind the probe, was taken off the case after reportedly criticising the preposterous public hearings on the arms deal.
If the idea was to shield government, it may prove an illusion. Courts called on to weigh civil claims against the state may reach very different conclusions about the raw material thrown up by the report.
The suspicion that the investigators pulled their punches is reinforced by the bizarre finding that the government is guilty of no wrongdoing. This blanket exoneration seems based on an extremely restrictive definition of “government”. With the possible exception of Joe Modise, who still seems to be under scrutiny, there is no evidence of impropriety against Cabinet ministers. But numerous state officials, some senior, have been exposed for misdeeds ranging from conflict of interest to incompetence. It should be remembered that the investigation was about irregular conduct of all kinds, not simply corruption.
The political dynamics around the probe have reinforced the impression that damage limitation has been the government’s overriding concern. Public confidence in the investigation was seriously eroded by such actions as the exclusion of Willem Heath’s investigative unit, the crippling of Parliament’s public accounts committee, allegations of partisan interference by the parliamentary speaker, the resignation from Parliament of MP Andrew Feinstein, the failure of Parliament’s ethics committee to interrogate Tony Yengeni and the submission of the investigators’ report to President Thabo Mbeki well before it was published.
In some respects the government deserves praise for the way the investigation has unfolded. There has been no cover-up in the classic sense. The prosecutions already initiated, and others that may follow, will send a clear message to politicians and officials looking to line their pockets at public expense.
But the doubts detailed above may have tarnished this achievement, and in particular the damage to Parliament and its oversight role could well be permanent.
Denness gets the finger
It is hard not to sympathise with the furious reaction in India to the treatment of cricket hero Sachin Tendulkar and five of his team-mates in the party touring South Africa.
International Cricket Council (ICC) match referee Mike Denness is at the centre of the storm after charging Tendulkar with ball-tampering cheating! for which the Indian icon was fined and received a suspended one-match ban. Similar sentences were extended to the others for alleged excessive appeals and attempting to intimidate the umpire in the Port Elizabeth Test.
Incensed Indian officials and newspapers have accused Denness of bias, racial prejudice and insulting their country. They have called for his removal and for their team to come home.
The former England captain claims that ICC regulations prevent him from commenting.
It is difficult to accept that Tendulkar’s innocuous and quite overt fiddling with the ball, in view of thousands watching television, amounted to cheating.
Considering the match circumstances, the inconclusive evidence and the option open to him of a quiet word with the Indian team if he was unhappy, it is difficult to account for Denness’s high-handed and insensitive actions. Was it indeed racial prejudice? Bias? Or was this a mediocre, forgotten former cricketer pathetically trying to attract attention at the expense of a batting maestro?
Whatever the explanation, Denness’s ill-judged antics soured the best match of the tour and placed the final Test in jeopardy.