A sadder and perhaps wiser Tony Yengeni, the former ANC chief whip, admitted this week that, in retrospect, there were things he could have done differently in the saga that has ultimately cost him his job.

Not that he sees anything wrong with accepting the huge discount he took when he bought the Mercedes Benz 4x4 that is at the heart of the controversy that led to him being charged with corruption, forgery and perjury.

"I'm not saying that it was wrong. I always want a nice discount on anything I buy. But with the public concern, in retrospect I should have done it differently. In future I will be cognisant of the impact of certain things I do. I'll be more careful."

'I didn't see anything wrong. I really didn't'

He said his position as an ordinary MP would be decided by the national working committee (NWC) of the ANC on Monday and he would abide by its decision.

Yengeni's resignation followed six months of pressure from colleagues and challenges in the ANC's parliamentary caucus, where he was accused of damaging the party through his alleged ethical breaches.

Despite his claims on Thursday that he took the decision to step down on his own, ANC sources say there was a 30-minute tussle on Wednesday in the party's newly formed 22-member political committee over whether he should be allowed to stay.

Asked how colleagues had reacted to him, he said people had conveyed support and encouraged him to be strong.

"But I'm not naive enough to believe they don't think differently," Yengeni said.

'The car that came, I liked it'

He said the ANC leadership had accepted his decision. They had not commented other than to accept what he had decided, and to say that there was a presumption of innocence until otherwise proven in court.

Asked about buying his car from an arms company instead of a car company, he said the two companies were one with two names. "So when I met Michael Woerfel (the suspended managing director of the European Aeronautics Defence and Space Company), it made sense to me to say I wanted a car and could he assist me. He said of course. I didn't see anything wrong. I really didn't. The car that came, I liked it. He said it would do me good to drive a Mercedes Benz. I agreed."

Yengeni said he was extremely angry that the Scorpions panel that interviewed him was all white and included someone who had been involved in investigating him when he was charged with treason in 1987.

He said the unit needed to have a mix of all races on its investigating teams.

But he vowed he would not be the fall guy in the arms scandal, and would fight back to clear his name.

Yengeni said people had called him arrogant in his handling of the parliamentary ethics committee investigating whether he had fully disclosed all assets and gifts. He insisted he responded to all their letters.

He said the ANC had said he should not work through the parliamentary ethics committee process and he should advise the committee that he would wait for the bigger investigation into the arms deal to take its course.

"I have no regrets about the ethics committee, or the ads I placed in the newspapers. I think what I did was right," he said without disclosing who had paid the estimated R250 000 bill for the advertisements.

Meanwhile, Sapa reports that Mandla Msomi, an Inkatha Freedom Party MP who allegedly received massive discounts on two vehicles, faces another complaint before parliament's ethics committee.

Msomi insists he acted above board and that he did not receive a discount on one of the vehicles. He said he paid a fair price for a second-hand car with 40 000km on the clock.

He said he did not buy the vehicles from Woerfel, but from DaimlerChrysler.

Gerhard Koornhof, a United Democratic Movement MP, has requested that an earlier probe into Msomi be reopened in light of the action taken against Yengeni.

The story behind Yengeni's reluctant resignation is one of heated argument and conflict in ANC decision-making bodies.

At Wednesday's meeting of the political committee, almost all the members felt that Yengeni should step down and that this should be the recommendation to the ANC's NWC.

Baleka Mbete, the deputy speaker, wanted him to stay, but after a 30-minute discussion the committee decided to recommend to the NWC that Yengeni step down.

The accusations against him had now become formal charges from the Scorpions, the crack investigative unit established by the government, ANC sources said.

Yengeni was then given the opportunity on Thursday to put forward this decision as his own publicly.

Before he faced journalists at a hastily convened press conference, Yengeni made a brief appearance at the ANC's regular Thursday morning parliamentary caucus.

The response from his colleagues was muted, said an MP who spoke on condition of anonymity. "There was polite applause when he announced that he'd be stepping down as chief whip. No one said hooray or shame. Most people thought he'd at last taken the best course."

At the press conference, Yengeni said he had wanted to leave parliament for some time. "Just before the 1999 elections, I thought I wanted to do something else outside parliament, but the leadership insisted that I should stay."

But sources said there had been pressure on Yengeni to step down since as early as March this year.

Several MPs and senior leaders feel the ANC was inhibited from acting earlier by arguments from some senior leaders that the accusations against Yengeni were part of broader attempts to discredit the party.

According to a senior ANC source: "Most people agreed that we needed to defend our leaders against unsubstantiated accusations. But other people also emphasised that those leaders had to be open with the party about what was going on.

"If you were dealing with a person who realised he'd made a mistake and came clean, it would have been a different matter. But Tony never did that."

Another senior ANC leader said: "The most important thing is that the events prove that our state system has the mechanism to deal with, and expose, wrongdoing."

With acknowledgement to News24 and Sapa