PAUL KIRK, Durban | Friday
President Thabo Mbeki’s ministerial committee that oversaw the Government’s 66-billion arms acquisition intervened to set conditions for the arms investigation after Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota initially gave investigators carte blanche.
The Mail & Guardian reported earlier that the executive invoked sections of the apartheid-era Special Defence Account Act to give the government the chance to vet both the auditor general’s September 2000 preliminary report on the arms deal and the joint investigative report released to Parliament this month.
The act gave the executive the power to censor the report for reasons of “national interest”. Auditor General Shauket Fakie has denied that “substantial” amendments resulted.
But a set of documents shows that the executive arm of the government, from the start, placed itself in a position where it could influence the course of the investigation itself. This included the establishment of an “audit steering committee” – on which sat, among others, controversial Department of Defence procurement chief Chippy Shaik.
The paper trail of minutes and correspondence seen by the M&G begins on June 28, 1999 when Henry Kluever, then the auditor general, wrote to then deputy president Thabo Mbeki for the second time since May of that year asking Mbeki to discuss the audit with other ministers involved in the arms deal and obtain their cooperation. Mbeki chaired the ministerial committee that oversaw the arms deal.
Two months later, on August 31, Mbeki had yet to reply. Kluever, through his then deputy, Shauket Fakie, again wrote asking if the deputy president had yet discussed the matter with the ministers concerned.
This letter was, sources insist, then answered with a communication referring the matter to the defence minister.
On September 20 1999 Fakie wrote to Lekota asking to meet urgently and saying: “The office of the auditor general has received information pertaining to the current media speculation of bribes that were paid by foreign institutions to senior officials regarding certain tenders.
Information regarding a certain commission paid by the [government arms producer] Denel group of companies was also received.”
The very next day Lekota wrote back to Fakie saying: “Approval is hereby given to the auditor general, or his designated representatives, to have access to all documents pertaining to the government-to-government [arms] packages for audit purposes. The chairman of Armscor and the acting secretary of defence have been informed of my decision.”
Sources in the auditor general’s office point out that Lekota’s letter gave the auditor general complete authority to probe any irregularities. Lekota’s authority does not ask for draft reports to be shown to the executive – as happened later – but merely that he, as defence minister, be kept advised of progress made in the audit.
Soon, however, the carte blanche authority was withdrawn – to comply with a decision by Mbeki’s committee.
A week after Lekota’s letter, on September 28, the defence ministry’s Brigadier General Keith Snowball wrote to Fakie: “It has been brought to the attention of the minister of defence that the ministerial sub-committee had taken a decision before Minister Lekota’s appointment that only the sub-committee can approve an audit of the documents regarding the [arms] packages. Minister Lekota was not aware of this when signing his approval of September 21 1999.”
Snowball then attaches a new authority signed by Lekota, which states – in poor language – that the auditor general has the authority “in principal [sic]” to access classified documentation to pursue the probe. It reads in part: “Approval is in principal given to the auditor general or his designated representative to have access to all documents pertaining to the strategic defence package for audit purposes subject to the auditor general detailing the terms of reference for such a financial audit. Your earlier request for such an audit of the [arms deal] was discussed at the sub-committee of Cabinet ministers of the [arms package] in [sic] May 26 1999
“These terms of reference must be discussed with all the relevant minister before the final approval can be given. The Auditor General’s Act (No12 of 1995) requires the auditor general to consult with the president, the minister of finance and the responsible ministers (minister of defence, and minister of trade and industry) when reporting on the Special Defence Account.”
In effect, Lekota’s new authority required the auditor general to clear his terms of reference with the executive arm of the government.
While the Auditor General’s Act – which incorporates sections of the Special Defence Account Act – allows this kind of executive interference, that seems to be at odds with the Constitution, which states that the auditor general is an independent institution and “answerable only to the law and the National Assembly”.
On November 29 1999 an “audit steering committee” was formed which brought together members of the auditor general’s office as well as representatives of the Department of Defence and Department of Trade and Industry. This committee included some of the personalities most suspected of wrong doing in the deal, including Shaik who has now been suspended for his alleged conflicts of interest. Those claims against Shaik were made as early as September 1999.
Another official who served on the committee was Vanan Pillay, the director of industrial participation in the Department of Trade and Industry, who has also since been censured for accepting a R55 000 discount on a vehicle from an arms company.
The existence of this “steering committee” raises serious questions about the extent to which the auditor general’s September 2000 report, and this month’s full arms report, were “steered”.
Last week the M&G revealed that Shaik had managed to make material changes to the first report. However, the extent to which the “steering committee” influenced the report could not be established. Minutes of the first steering committee meeting held on October 20 1999 reflect Fakie thanking Shaik for preparing a “comprehensive presentation on the process [of the arms acquisition]” and Fakie confirming that Shaik’s information “will form a solid foundation for the attorney general’s audit plan”.
Fakie is at present in Switzerland and cannot be reached for comment.