African National Congress MPs this week caved in to executive pressure over a clause in arms control legislation that would have given Parliament pre-emptive oversight of pending arms sales.
However, MPs of the ruling party, spearheaded by chairperson of the defence committee, Thandi Modise, remained adamant about other important oversight controls, in-cluding a quarterly report on all conventional arms exports, to be submitted to the Cabinet and Parliament; a yearly report on all conventional arms exports by type and quantity; and a copy of South Africa’s submissions to the United Nations Register of Conventional Arms.
The ANC MPs initially pressed for a clause giving the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) full information on a quarterly basis on pending arms export applications. Their position shifted after an ANC caucus meeting that threw its weight behind objections by Minister of Defence Mosiuoa Lekota.
The controversial Section 23 (1) (c) of the National Conventional Arms Control Bill has a chequered history. The defence committee originally approved the Bill with the clause in it in March. In May the Ministry of Defence resubmitted the Bill with a request that the clause be deleted.
The committee is now deliberating this request and will put the issue to a vote. It is anticipated that the clause will be deleted with the support of the ANC and New National Party when the defence committee meets again on August 13 to finalise the Bill, two days ahead of the scheduled debate in the National Assembly. During earlier public hearings, many NGOs came out in favour of pre- emptive parliamentary oversight.
This week Section 23 (1) (c) again dominated discussions on the much-revised Bill, which aims to formalise South Africa’s arms control under the NCACC, constituted as a Cabinet sub-committee chaired by Minister of Education Kader Asmal since 1995.
It sets out to formalise South Africa’s current arms control regime to include considerations of client countries’ track records, to prevent local arms being used in civil wars.
At present NCACC reports state only the quantity of weapons in broadly defined categories, ranging from lethal to general services, already exported to a country. South Africa’s arms exports last year amounted to just over R1,7-billion, up from almost R1,4-billion in 2000.
Appearing before the defence committee on Wednesday, Lekota warned that oversight over pending arms export applications was tantamount to blurring the separation of powers between Parliament and the executive. Making all details public would endanger future defence contracts, he said, as a certain level of secrecy was usual in such deals.
”We are saying we as the executive are passing our function to the legislator,” Lekota said. ”If anything goes wrong with what’s been recommended [by the committee] we can say: ‘But it’s not us. We did as we were told by the legislator.’ That’s not oversight, that’s taking over.”
Instead, he promised a two-part report: one similar to the current disclosures, and another confidential section with precise details of the type, quantity and destination of weapons, which would be restricted to Parliament.
Committee chairperson Modise, who vigorously defended full oversight this week, warned that MPs would not be ”fobbed off”.
”If reports that will come to Parliament in any way resemble this report [of the current NCACC], I am sure many of us will have regrets about having participated in this process,” she said. However, it appears other ANC MPs were willing to give up pre-emptive oversight following Lekota’s promise of full disclosure to MPs.
Concerns persist over Lekota’s defence of a loosely defined provision that anyone who discloses classified information on ”any business of the committee” without authorisation can be jailed for up to 20 years or fined. MPs were warned that this provision should not enable the government to hide arms exports.
The committee’s adviser, Laurie Nathan, pointed out that while the official NCACC report merely records exports last year of R21,17-million to Swaziland in the category ”sensitive major significant equipment”, anyone checking the United Nations’ Register of Conventional Arms could discover that this includes seven mine-proofed armoured personnel carriers.
Similarly, the official NCACC report merely records arms exports of R221,5-million to India in Category A and C (non-sensitive equipment), while the UN register specifies that this included 75 Casspir armoured vehicles.
The Bill is now being redrafted to include the committee’s amendments to the defence ministry’s submissions.
The new draft will also coordinate the NCACC’s arms-control obligations with those of the police, whose national commissioner may also approve the export of small firearms under the Firearms Control Act of 2000.