President Kgalema Motlanthe on Wednesday rejected renewed calls for the presidency to establish a commission of inquiry on the arms deal.
”Government has always maintained that if anyone has information implicating individuals in the arms deal, then that person should forward such information to law enforcement agencies,” his spokesperson Thabo Masebe told the South African Press Association.
The president was convinced that a commission of inquiry would not be an appropriate tool to investigate alleged criminal activities during the arms deal.
”There is already an investigation in some of these matters and we are confident that our law enforcement agencies are capable of handling any allegations pertaining to the arms deal,” Masebe said.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former president FW de Klerk had written to Motlanthe requesting he establish an independent commission to probe the arms deal.
Masebe said a letter would be sent to Tutu and De Klerk on Wednesday informing them about Motlanthe’s decision. The letter would be made public. Tutu and de Klerk’s call received support from clergymen, academics, authors, activists and politicians.
‘Bribes’
The Mail & Guardian reported on December that new evidence of corruption in the arms deal was disclosed in documents used by the Scorpions to motivate for raids on premises countrywide.
The documents, show that ‘commissions†paid to agents by British defence giant BAE Systems total more than £115-million — R1,73-billion — at today’s exchange rate.
They also argue BAE could not produce evidence of legitimate services by their agents which could justify the huge amounts paid to them.
The documents — affidavits by South African and British investigators, financial statements and correspondence — formed the basis for the Scorpions’ secret application to the Pretoria High Court to search seven premises linked to BAE and its agents in the first week of December.
They documents disclose:
- How the vast majority of BAE’s commission payments — £103-million — were ‘covert†and made through a secret front company;
- How the covert payments were made to a series of undisclosed agents — including Fana Hlongwane, who served as special adviser to then defence minister Joe Modise at the time BAE was chosen as preferred bidder;
- How BAE allegedly tried to hide the extent and timing of their relationship with Hlongwane from investigators. The M&G has previously disclosed his receipt of hundreds of millions of rands as a ‘consultant†to BAE;
- How two highly unusual commission payments were authorised just before South Africa signed the final contracts in December 1999; and
- Details of interventions by Modise and then defence procurement boss Chippy Shaik which advantaged the BAE bid.
BAE led the successful bid, with Sweden’s Saab as junior partner, to supply BAE Hawk trainer jets and Saab Gripen jet fighters worth more than R21-billion in today’s money.
The documents detail evidence obtained by the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which is conducting an investigation parallel to the Scorpions.
The SFO evidence includes:
- A statement under oath by a former BAE executive about how Zimbabwean-born arms-and-tobacco baron John Bredenkamp, whose company received the largest ‘commission†payments from BAE, suggested to him that ‘key decision-makers†needed to be identified with a view to ‘financially incentivising†them;
- How the former executive was allegedly told that Bredenkamp’s team had boasted that ‘we can get to Chippy Shaikâ€;
- How a memo obtained from Bredenkamp’s British operations chief spoke of the ‘Third World procedures†required to win the South African bid.
BAE has consistently maintained it acted legally. Hlongwane has in the past failed to talk to the M&G. Bredenkamp has maintained his innocence.