South African President Thabo Mbeki has dismissed as ”mischief” suggestions that he was involved in arms-deal corruption.
In the National Assembly on Thursday the president was asked by United Democratic Movement president Bantu Holomisa about ”repeated insinuations” that he had been involved in meetings with arms-deal bidders ”at a critical time of the tender process” involving South Africa’s arms deal.
Responding to the suggestion by Holomisa that there could be a parliamentary preliminary investigation into the matter, the president told MPs that government did not have the power to veto such a course of action and Parliament had the right to decide on such a move.
”What I will say though, should the House decide on that course, they are not going to find the corruption that they are fishing for. It does not exist. It doesn’t matter who puts out rumours. I can put our rumours today that Holomisa stole a bag of potatoes from Checkers. The house may appoint a commission. They won’t find it [corruption], but let them try.”
”All there is to it is mischief,” he said of the rumours.
Mbeki is repeatedly accused of having met high-ranking officials of French arms company Thomson CSF — now Thint — while he was still deputy president. It was part — with African Defence Systems — of the German Frigate Consortium that won the corvette contract for the South African Navy. The consortium is led by the Germany firm ThyssenKrupp.
While Mbeki did not deny such a meeting on Thursday — he made no reference to it — he did say that South Africans could write to the German minister of justice: ”Ask them about that story. See what they say.”
In June this year German investigators searched for evidence of an alleged R130-million bribe to win the contract to supply four corvettes to South Africa.
Succession race
Meanwhile, Mbeki says South Africans should not ”preoccupy” themselves with the issue of succession for president.
Political parties would elect leaders at the appropriate time and his government continued to function ”properly and effectively”. It still had the mandate of ”the overwhelming majority”, he told MPs on Thursday.
He was answering a question in the National Assembly from official opposition Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon who asked whether the succession issue within the ruling party was having ”any negative effects” on governance.
The ruling ANC is to hold presidential elections at the end of next year and it is widely believed that Mbeki, the incumbent party president, would be in a race with the current number two, former deputy president Jacob Zuma.
However, in Thursday’s discussion no reference was made to the former deputy president, but Mbeki did note that Leon had referred to the hostile reaction given to current Deputy President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka at the recent Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) congress in Johannesburg.
Yet recently, the president reported, government had met the new leadership — including the re-elected president Willie Madisha and general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi — and they had agreed that a two-day lekgotla (meeting) should be held to discuss economic matters.
It had been agreed that the current deputy president should visit this big meeting.
”Whatever happened at the Cosatu conference did not affect the work we are doing as government to address matters of common concern,” Mbeki told MPs. — I-Net Bridge