Michael Woerfel likes Italian food. That much is clear from an expenses schedule attached to the state’s case against him and Tony Yengeni. But it is also clear that he conducted a two-year schmooze campaign to win support for his company’s bid for a slice of South Africa’s multibillion-rand arms deal.
Woerfel’s expenses schedule shows that aside from spending some R150 000 on Yengeni, his wife and his secretary (apart from that discounted 4×4), Woerfel wined and dined a variety of influential figures from the defence establishment.
Woerfel wooed other members of Parliament’s standing committee on defence in a variety of ways: there was a 1997 trip to the Paris air show, apparently by committee member Mbulelo Goniwe, and another trip to the game resort Kalinga Lodge. Here Woerfel treated committee members Yengeni, Goniwe, JM Mashimbiye, RS Molekane and JA Marais, as well as their families. (Marais also declared a 1998 trip to the Berlin air show which was paid for by DaimlerChrysler Aerospace SA [Dasa], which does not feature on Woerfel’s expenses schedule.)
Another name that features often on Woerfel’s guest list is that of retired Major-General Winston Thackwray, who was adviser to the chief of the South African Air Force (SAAF) on ”operational requirements”. He previously served as chief of air staff operations and director of operations of the SAAF.
According to the schedule, Woerfel entertained air force officers linked to the acquisition programme, as well as Armscor chief Ron Haywood and Fana Hlongwane, a director of Denel who was also special adviser to late defence minister Joe Modise. Also making the guest list was businessman KJ ”Bobby” Makwetla, who has an interest in the defence company AMS and is also a director of Reunert.
Woerfel had one meal with Chippy Shaik (though he only spent R55) and another with his brother Schabir Shaik.
In virtually all cases, the expenses are allocated the code AT2000, the name of the fighter proposed by Dasa, or under the rubric ”package deal”.
After all this effort, Dasa secured little more than a subcontract for the supply of the search and tracking radar for the corvettes, via its interest in Reutech Radar Systems, a division of Reunert.
Does this mean that the bidding process was immune to the influence of little gifts such as Woerfel chose to bestow? Or does it mean that others were more generous? We may never know.