The Cabinet has dismissed renewed allegations of President Thabo Mbeki’s involvement in arms-deal corruption as baseless and mere speculation.
Wednesday’s fortnightly Cabinet meeting had noted media reports regarding the investigation by German authorities into allegations of corruption in the arms deal, government communications head Themba Maseko told a media briefing on Thursday.
”The government is particularly concerned about attempts to cast aspersions on the person and office of the Presidency.
”The allegations against the Presidency are accordingly dismissed as baseless, mere speculation and gross mischief as they bear no relation to the truth,” Maseko said.
In a separate statement handed out at the briefing, the Department of Justice and Constitutional Development sought to dispel suggestions that the government was dragging its feet on the matter.
There was ”absolutely no truth” in the allegation that the government had delayed responding to the German authorities’ request for mutual legal assistance (MLA) in their investigation into allegations of corruption in the arms deal.
Contrary to media reports, Director General Menzi Simelane, as the ”central authority of the requested state” in terms of the MLA protocol in criminal matters, had done everything within his powers to execute the German request.
The Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office dealing with the probe, in a letter to Simelane on March 17 2008, dismissed reports in the South African media that the ”German investigators have long since responded to the South Africans and were still awaiting an answer”.
The prosecutor had assured the South African government that the comments attributed to a ”German prosecutions spokesperson” were not official comments of the Düsseldorf public prosecutor’s office, the department said.
Last Thursday, March 13, German prosecutions spokesperson Arno Neukirchen said that prosecutors in Düsseldorf had responded to a South African request for further details on a 2007 request for mutual legal assistance.
He said: ”We sent it long ago. I can’t remember the exact date but it was at the beginning of the year.”
He said their reply may have become bogged down in the ”diplomatic channels”.
In its statement, the department said a request for assistance in terms of the MLA protocol from the Düsseldorf prosecutor had first been received on June 19 2007.
On October 25, Simelane responded to this request with a request for more information to enable him to consider the matter further.
The Düsseldorf public prosecutor responded on November 7, undertaking to provide the additional documents and information requested from the German authorities.
This correspondence was followed by three letters from Simelane to the Düsseldorf public prosecutor.
The last one, dated March 17 2008, indicated that the South African government was still awaiting the further particulars requested in October 2007.
This was followed by a letter on March 17 by the Düsseldorf public prosecutor indicating that the German authorities had for the past few months, since their original request, been gathering information relating to the further information requested.
The prosecutor indicated the documents were in the process of being translated, the department said.
Last Thursday, Neukirchen declined to tell the South African Press Association what was being requested from South Africa, but said the information required was ”essential” for the Düsseldorf prosecutors to complete their investigations.
It emerged in July 2006 that German prosecutors were investigating what were described as ”irregularities” in the sale of warships to South Africa by German shipbuilding group ThyssenKrupp. — Sapa