Parliament has scheduled a three-hour debate on the joint investigation team’s findings on the controversial arms procurement package, in which the opposition will resurrect complaints that the government is hiding the true cost of the deal.
The debate on August 13, soon after Parliament reconvenes, will consider reports on the inquiry team’s findings by a range of parliamentary committees, including justice, public service, finance, defence, trade and industry, and public accounts.
The joint investigation team issued its report in December last year. Although slammed as a whitewash in some quarters, it was taken by the government as a vindication of the procurement’s integrity.
The Democratic Alliance has raised concerns that the debate is being rushed, as government departments have not yet informed MPs of what they have done in response to the committees’ recommendations.
DA defence spokesperson Hendrik Schmidt said the purpose of the debate was apparently to put the arms saga to rest to avert further damage to the executive.
Schmidt said that although the estimated cost of the deal was now R54-billion, the real costs, including international bank interest charges and other associated expenses, could double it.
”Despite parliamentary questions they [the government] have not stepped forward with the exact total cost, notwithstanding the rand depreciation … and have hidden behind fancy accounting,” Schmidt said.
The debate is likely to focus on how Parliament exercised its oversight function. It is understood that opposition MPs such as the Inkatha Freedom Party’s Gavin Woods and DA MP Raenette Taljaard — former Select Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) members who questioned both the package and the investigation — are to reiterate concerns over ”unanswered questions”.
These include the success of the industrial offsets, the hidden costs, the lack of ministerial accountability and the absence of criminal prosecutions.
When Woods resigned as Scopa chairperson at the beginning of the year over ”executive interference”, he released a detailed study of the procurement, citing more than 50 irregularities.
”These many failings go beyond simply being unacceptable. This would represent a crisis of credibility for procurement transactions anywhere else, and would see those responsible for such flagrant disregard for the rules being the subject of considerable sanction.”
In the debate the DA is also likely to call for the government to exercise its option to cancel the third and final tranche of the fighter and trainer jet acquisition. The government by default at the end of March committed itself to the second tranche.
Meanwhile, Tony Yengeni this week failed in his bid to have charges of corruption, linked to the 47% discount he received on a luxury Mercedes Benz 4×4, thrown out of court.
Yengeni is facing charges with Michael Woerfel, the South African managing director of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, a participant in a R220-million arms deal.
Former arms acquisition chief Chippy Shaik resigned in April after receiving a final warning from the Department of Defence for disclosing confidential information contained in the draft auditor general’s report on the deal to his lawyers. His brother Shabir is on trial for the possession of confidential Cabinet documents, including minutes on the arms deal.
His company, Nkobi Holdings, is a shareholder in Thales International, which also won a key contract.
Parliament’s programme until the end of September is a mixed bag. It includes a historic two-day plenary session by the National Council of Provinces in Umtata at the beginning of August.
Also planned are debates on moral regeneration, the so-called ”Hottentot Venus” Saartjie Baartman, whose remains were recently returned from France and are set to be buried in the Eastern Cape on August 9, and the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development.
Depending on the outcome of the Constitutional Court challenge to the defection laws set down for August 6, Parliament may also have to deal with MPs crossing the floor to other parties, the emergence of new political parties and the redistribution of back-bench seats.