Arms report is not comprehensive

CAPE TOWN Outstanding questions about the role of former defence minister Joe Modise in the arms acquisition process made government's claim that the investigators' report completely exonerated it of allegations of fraud and corruption premature, Democratic Alliance spokeswoman Raenette Taljaard said yesterday.

Taljaard said the allegations of kickbacks paid to Modise, his interests in companies that apparently benefited from the arms contracts and his role in the decision to acquire the Hawk aircraft from British Aerospace would have to be investigated.

"Attention must also be paid to the donations that were made to the Umkhonto we Sizwe War Veteran's Association by British Aerospace and to a number of other matters on which the report is silent. The fact remains that Modise held sway over the critical procurement period, and it is cosmetic to suggest that simply because he did not sign the final contract documents his actions were not untoward in any way and that the executive's record is therefore clean."

While the investigators found no evidence of impropriety by Modise, they said it was "extremely undesirable" that the company he was involved with had benefited from the arms deal.

Despite government's claims that it had been exonerated, Taljaard said the report identified serious noncompliance with law and procurement policy, which it then fudged. Taljaard said the process was so fundamentally flawed as to call into question the validity of the prime contracts, and those who took the "faulty political decisions" should be held accountable.

Taljaard asked how the report could be comprehensive when it had not dealt with the industrial participation projects, which she believed were pivotal in the choice of the prime contractors.

Meanwhile, Parliament's public accounts committee has been assured by National Assembly speaker Frene Ginwala that it can examine the entire report of the joint investigating team, , even though other committees will be doing so as well.

The defence, finance, ethics, trade and industry and justice portfolio committees have been assigned aspects of the report to interrogate, and public accounts chairman Gavin Woods was concerned this might preclude the public accounts committee from interrogating the same aspects.

He met with Ginwala on Friday, and was informed that the committee could look at the whole report. Woods said this was important as all the aspects of the report had financial and financial management dimensions.

The committee was hoping to have its own meeting with the three investigating agencies early next month.

Ginwala also said that if it had not finished its work by the December 5 deadline it could submit an interim report outlining what had been achieved and what still had to be done. Woods was concerned that Parliament was being forced to rush through the report as government seemed to want to close the door on the whole investigation as soon as possible.