The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) decided on Wednesday to wait for the Auditor General (AG) to present a special report responding to allegations about the controversial arms deal — opting not to call him directly to the committee.
The decision, however, was not taken easily, with allegations of newspaper bias over the reporting of the controversy being aired by an ANC Member of Parliament and the opposition expressing concern that billions of rand were at stake and the committee needed to carry out its fiduciary duties.
But chairman Francois Beukman, a New National Party MP, said that parliament was awaiting AG Shauket Fakie’s report which would be presented to the Speaker, Frene Ginwala. This would then be referred to the standing committee.
MPs on the multi-party committee (dominated by the ruling African National Congress) will then decide how to proceed — including whether to take up the AG’s offer to brief the committee.
This follows allegations in the media — in particular Business Day — that the final report into the arms deal was edited, apparently by a member or members of the national cabinet. That report found that there was no complicity by members of the cabinet in any irregularities.
A debate on the procedure to be followed in reacting to media reports on the arms deal — which aims to reequip the army and navy — led to one ANC MP Billy Nair accusing Business Day of bias in favour of the official opposition Democratic Alliance.
Nair said that Business Day had made certain allegations about Fakie but “did not carry the Auditor General’s position in full”. He warned that up till now there had been nothing substantial or new in the allegations made about the arms deal.
His view was backed by the ANC leader on the committee Vincent Smith. Smith said the issue of the arms deal could not be reopened on the basis “of some newspaper” or based on reports about somebody “who might have been aggrieved” in terms of the bidding process. “We need to be very careful that Scopa and members of Parliament are not casting aspersions on the Auditor General.”
Richard Young, an unsuccessful sub-contractor bidder, won a court action for the release of arms deal related documentation from the AG’s office under the Access to Information Act.
Democratic Alliance MP Nigel Bruce, who expressed much surprise that Business Day was seen to be supportive of his party, said if the AG wanted to address the committee “on this matter we should welcome that if the AG wants to clear his name … there is no question of impugning his integrity; we should
welcome him to the committee.”
Bruce, a former editor of the Financial Mail, warned of the perception that
the governing party did not want to “come to grips with what could be a major
piece of dishonesty”. There should not be a perception “that we (MPs on Scopa) were trying to brush it aside”.
One of the issues left out in the final report — according to Business Day– – was a section titled “Inaccuracies in the presentation to Scopa”, which lists
three pages of differences between what was presented to the committee and the
factual situation as uncovered by investigators.
One of these “inaccuracies” reveals that the defence department’s presentation, made in October 2000 and headed by former arms acquisition chief Chippy Shaik, claimed that a winning contractor, African Defence Systems (ADS), had no connection to French arms giant Thomson when the contract was awarded.
Shaik told Parliament that ADS, a company now part-owned by his brother Schabir, had no links to his brother at the time the contracts were submitted. It was claimed that Schabir gained an interest in ADS only after Thomson bought into the SA subsidiary. – I-Net Bridge