The official opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) will on Wednesday request Parliament to set up a multiparty committee to investigate the arms deal, says opposition leader Tony Leon.
Addressing the Cape Town Press Club on Tuesday, Leon said this needed to be done ”on an urgent basis” to probe alleged misreporting on details of the arms deal.
He told a lunch function that certain key sections of the deal had been allegedly withheld from the auditor general’s report on the arms deal to Parliament.
”Here the president, cabinet ministers, and the auditor general (Shauket Fakie) were making use of an old apartheid loophole that has survived into the present era as Section 4 (6) of the Auditor General Act of 1995.”
This section allowed the auditor general and the relevant ministers to make changes to audit reports ”and the apartheid regime (the previous National Party government) used this provision to hide certain military and intelligence programmes from the public”, he said.
”Today, the constitutionality of this section is clearly in doubt… since section 188 of the Constitution requires that the auditor general make audit reports available to Parliament and the public and does not provide for withholding information.”
”These constitutional requirements did not stop the leaders of our government from taking advantage of the old loophole. New legislation on the function of the auditor general is coming to the National Assembly this year.”
”The Democratic Alliance will insist that Section 4(6) be made compliant with our new Constitution and amended to require the auditor general to explain any changes in audit reports to Parliament.”
”It is very late in the day, but Parliament can still redeem itself. Having been marginalised and delegitimised throughout this entire arms deal fiasco, surely Parliament must finally reassert itself?”
The way to do it was, he said, for Parliament to use the provisions of Section 56 of the Constitution, which states that the National Assembly may ”(a) summon any person to appear before it to give evidence on oath or affirmation, or to produce documents; [and] (b) require any person or institution to report to it”.
He suggested that Fakie should be called to Parliament to explain the audit process of the arms deal.
Leon said the Brandeis test should be used on exposing corruption.
”In the early part of the 20th century it was Justice Louis Brandeis who stated that in questions of sleaze sunlight is the best disinfectant and electricity the most effective policeman.”
Leon suggested that Thales and other successful bidders and subcontractors whose conduct has been questioned be called to Parliament. – I-Net Bridge