Ministerial intervention has finally led to the release of documents by Armscor to researchers for the Swiss National Science Foundation project on Swiss-South African military relations under apartheid.
The South African History Archives (Saha) has been assisting the Swiss foundation in its quest for the documents.
Saha director Sello Hatang said in a statement on Wednesday the release has occurred after about 18 months of ”inaction and frustrations” since a request for the information was made under the Promotion of Access to Information Act.
”Attempts were made over this period to facilitate progress in dealing with the request. However, on more than one occasion, Armscor failed to communicate with the requesters for lengthy periods.
”The requesters had to threaten Armscor with legal action before they re-established contact. Finally, around four months ago, the requesters wrote a letter to the minister of defence [Mosiuoa Lekota] complaining about their treatment by Armscor, and foreshadowing a complaint to the public protector.
”Ministerial intervention led to the release of the documents, although the names of Swiss companies involved in arms deals with South Africa remain masked,” Hatang said.
The outcome of this case was welcome, but it was disturbing it should have taken this long and that ministerial intervention was required to ensure compliance with the most basic provisions of the Act.
”It is hoped that this incident will lead to an improvement in Armscor’s performance in dealing with requests for information under the Act.
”It is also hoped that any agency or department whose performance in this regard is sub-optimal will take note that means of enforcing compliance do exist, even after lengthy periods of inaction in response to requests,” Hatang said. — Sapa