A British military economist, speaking in Johannesburg, said about 30 percent of that spent on arms went to commissions and bribes to powerful figures.

Professor John Paul Dunne, a lecturer at Middlesex University in England, said the sale of military weapons worldwide also did not create as many jobs as was expected.

Dunne was addressing guests at a seminar on arms control and disarmament held at the University of Witwatersrand on Wednesday.

"Any money in the economy will create jobs, but spending a lot of money on military equipment will definitely create less jobs.

'This is not the way of getting foreign investment'

"Everybody knows that if you want to sell in the arms trade you have to bribe. In Britain they do it and get away with it," he said.

The seminar, dubbed "Will South Africa really benefit from the multi-billion rands arms deal?" was organised by the Ceasefire Campaign - a demilitarisation organisation calling for spending of state resources on social services instead of defence.

The R43-billion the South African government was said to have pledged to the purchase of arms from European companies was said to create about 65 000 jobs.

But Dunne disputed that, saying international experience showed the purchase of arms for reasons other than security should not be justified by calling it a means of encouraging foreign investment.

"This is not the way of getting foreign investment. In terms of these (jobs) being long-term investments, they actually don't last that long," he said. "As a job creation scheme, this is a joke."

He said governments could use the money to formulate and implement social programmes to uplift the quality of life.

And most of the people employed in the defence industry were highly-skilled individuals who might migrate for fear of losing their jobs, he said. 

With acknowledgement to Daily News and Independent Online.