The Public Protector will not investigate Chippy Shaik over arms-deal bribery allegations, his office said on Friday.
”Advocate Lawrence Mushwana concluded that he could not, at this stage, proceed with an investigation as the ‘allegation’ referred to criminal conduct that German authorities were investigating,” said his spokesperson, Charles Phahlane.
This followed ”due consideration” of a request to do so by the Democratic Alliance arms-deal spokesperson Eddie Trent.
Mushwana said the Public Protector did not have powers to conduct criminal investigations and to institute prosecutions.
”It is therefore for the National Prosecuting Authority to decide whether the allegations made by Der Spiegel warrant any further investigation in South Africa at this time.”
According to Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, Shaik, brother of fraud convict Schabir Shaik, was allegedly paid a $3-million (about R21-million) bribe by one of the arms-deal bidding companies.
On February 5 the DA requested that allegations relating to Chippy Shaik be investigated.
A March 15 2007 meeting between the Public Protector, the National Prosecuting Authority and Auditor General Terence Nombembe concluded that none of the requests for investigation they had received required their ”joint consideration”.
”They agreed that each institution would deal with issues that have been raised based on their own mandates. This means that the three agencies will not reconstitute a joint investigation team as was structured in the 2001 probe.”
The agencies would respond directly to the individuals who made enquiries and requests for investigation, said Phahlane.
A 2001 joint report found that Chippy Shaik had not ”recused himself properly” from meetings that later awarded contracts to Schabir Shaik.
Chippy Shaik later resigned from the public service after an inquiry found that he acted improperly by disclosing confidential information contained in a draft report of the Auditor General.
According to Der Spiegel’s report, internal documents of Thyssen Krupp, a German company that supplied the South African Navy with four frigates, revealed that Chippy Shaik requested the bribe in 1998.
The company apparently deposited the money to a non-existent company in London in 2000. Shaik was head of procurement at the Defence Department at the time. — Sapa