Cape Town - Today is D-Day for Parliament's politically divided public accounts committee in its deliberations on the report on the arms programme.

The African National Congress (ANC) is expected to use its majority on the committee to push through its report on the findings and recommendations.

The ANC fundamentally rejects the essential elements which opposition parties insist must be in the committee's report for example, a future engagement with cabinet ministers and is adamant that the matter has to be dealt with finally today or tomorrow. Each political party was given until today to prepare its version of a committee report.

The ANC study group met yesterday to draft its proposal, which reaffirms the party's confidence in the work of the joint investigating team into the R43,8bn arms programme.

No independent recommendations are made, although the ANC report calls on the national prosecutions directorate to complete its investigations and for government to formulate and implement a procurement policy as soon as possible.

ANC public accounts spokesman Vincent Smith said the ANC was totally opposed to any further inquiries by the public accounts committee. "The ANC is very determined to conclude this matter by Wednesday. Anything else must be dealt with outside of the committee."

Committee chairman Gavin Woods of the Inkatha Freedom Party was equally insistent that proper accountability by the committee required further investigations to determine whether the demands made in its original report to Parliament requesting an investigation had been met. If not, it might be necessary to engage once again with ministers and officials involved.

Democratic Alliance public accounts spokeswoman Raenette Taljaard believed the committee had to undertake a complete post-mortem of the procurement process, looking particularly at the relationship between the prime and subcontractors. Cabinet ministers also needed to explain the contradictions between their pronouncements at the beginning of the year and the findings in the report.

United Democratic Movement spokesman Gerhard Koornhof also felt cabinet ministers should explain the costs of the deal.

Richard Calland, director of Idasa's political information and monitoring service, said it would be a sad day for the slow process of developing a conventional practice of parliamentary oversight if the ANC pushed through its report.

"I would be sorry if the committee were to draw a line under its work as far as the arms report is concerned. There is far more work that has to be done if it is to fulfil its accountability role.

"The public accounts committee is the prime oversight body, which should be playing that central, co-ordinating role. The committee also has to pick up on processes involved with conflict of interest, tendering and ministerial responsibility and accountability which the report of the joint investigating team is weak on."