No one can accuse Gavin Woods, who this week tendered his resignation as chair of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), of having a great sense of timing.

Such is the difference and caution of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) member of parliament that he waited three months before publicly voicing his criticism of the joint report by the Auditor-general, public protector and director of public prosecutions into the government’s controversial multi-billion rand arms deal.

By now, attempts to probe further into the scandal have been squashed by the report’s findings and public and media interest has waned significantly.

Yet it would be a pity if Woods were brushed aside, because one reason for the delay has been his attempt to rescue Scopa from the enormous damage done by the politicisation and polarisation of the committee which took place around the arms deal.

Scopa is the parliamentary body that oversees government spending - and is traditionally chaired by an opposition figure.

Until Scopa’s attempt to probe the arms deal, the committee also operated in a consensual, non-partisan way - a vital feature which prevented accountability from being undermined by party-political considerations.

All that was swept away by the arms deal investigation, which prompted the African National Congress to exert party control over the committee to the extent of removing the ANC’s independent-minded Andrew Feinstein.

Just how much damage this intervention by the majority party has done is made clear by the details of Woods’s attempt to heal the rift, which he included in his resignation statement this week.

Woods wrote: "Notwithstanding my failed initiatives to get the committee back on track last year, I decided to approach all members of the committee to work with me in confirming the existence of the serious problems and in then considering my (and their) proposed resolutions of the problems."

Woods also wrote to the party whips asking for their support for this endeavour. Only the ANC declined. According to Woods, the subsequent committee meeting, held in camera, did not get to grips with the issues on the table: "The ANC spent most of the time voicing criticism of myself."

Woods detailed his requests to the committee and the ANC’s responses. They are damning.

On Woods’s plea for members to put parliament before party in this committee: "Some members disputed that the committee was unduly politicised. Others stated that the ANC would always put the party first and its involvement in Scopa would always be directed by the party. It was then suggested that as the ANC stood for good public finance management, the imposition of its position on the committee would not constitute a problem.

Even Woods’s request that the committee work more than two days a week in order to meet its obligations was rejected, despite his pointing out that in 2001 the committee had only dealt with about half its work obligation. Woods’s failure to achieve any common ground with the ANC members prompted his resignation this week - and his tabling of two documents: the critique of the joint investigation team (see sidebar) and a list of alleged incidents which, he believes, demonstrates undue political interference in Scopa’s work.

Among those incidents of alleged interference, Woods cites :

November 2000: ANC members of Scopa "severely berated" by the Minister in the President’s Office, Essop  Pahad, for passing the Scopa resolution calling for a joint investigation into the arms deal.

November 14, 2000: ANC members of Scopa called to Tuynhuys by members of the executive to further challenge Scopa’s intended investigation and "discourage ANC members from any meaningful involvement".

Speaker of Parliament Frene Ginwala, who was among those accused by Woods of interference, an accusation that she emphatically denied, declined to comment on what her office called "statements by members made through the media".

Key questions :

The cost: Woods points out that the JIT report provided little clarity on the real cost of the arms purchase. As the investigators pointed out, cabinet was presented with all sorts of different figures - which never included the financing (interest) cost. The JIT report did not clear up this confusion. There is still have no breakdown which includes all the hidden costs (such as higher maintenance and operational costs) and extras which are dispersed in different budget votes and "off-budget" items. Neither did it deal with the issue of price escalation, which was a clear concern of the Scopa report. Woods took issue with the view expressed in the JIT report that "ultimately, the decision as to what the country can afford is one of political choice".

Industrial Participation. The deal was sold to the public on the basis of a promised massive inflow of counter-trade investment and export promotion. Woods takes issue with what he characterises as the very shallow attempt to assess the real value and viability of these projects, some of which, such as the Coega steel mill, bit the dust as soon as the contract ink was dry.

The selection of the winning bidders. Woods says the JIT report found well over 50 instances of non-compliance with procedures during the biding process, but that the investigators failed to draw a single negative inference from these - despite the fact that many are considered to be fundamental to good practice.

He claims the facts show that had rules been adhered to, at least three of the five main contractors are likely to have been different.