CAPE TOWN The African National Congress (ANC) forced through a decision last night which saves its chief whip, Tony Yengeni, from a special parliamentary investigation and puts deliberations on hold until the outcome of the official probe into the R43bn arms deal.

The decision was by majority vote in the parliamentary ethics committee against the protests of most opposition parties. It was the first time in the committee's short history that it failed to reach a unanimous decision.

The committee's decision leaves the charges that Yengeni failed to declare the free use of a luxury vehicle in the hands of the multi-agency team looking at allegations of corruption and criminal acts in relation to the arms deal. The team is not specifically looking into whether Yengeni breached the MPs' code of conduct by failing to declare a substantial gift or benefit.

The decision also gets Yengeni off the hook in terms of his failing to comply with the committee's initial request for an explanation of how he acquired the car. Democratic Party (DP) chief whip Douglas Gibson said that Yengeni's failure to answer the questions put him in contempt of the committee and finally in contempt of Parliament itself.

ANC MP Jeremy Cronin, who proposed that the committee wait for the report of the investigating team, agreed that there could be substance to the news reports which said that the car was given to Yengeni as a sweetener as part of an arms deal bid. As the car could not be separated from the deal, the matter belonged in the hands of the team investigating it, Cronin said. He said the ANC was not obfuscating the matter but that when the team reported, the ethics committee would have to consider the matter and make a decision.

Gibson asked why the ANC was so afraid of bringing Yengeni before the committee and getting him to tell the truth about his car. He said that putting the investigation of a breach of Parliament's ethics in outside hands would "destroy the code of conduct". He said the two-hour wrangle in the committee meeting was a farce because the ANC decided the outcome before it started.  

With acknowledgment to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.