The government's claims that spending R43-billion on arms would result in R11-billion in reinvestment and 65 000 jobs sounds "like a pyramid scheme", according to Patricia de Lille, the Pan Africanist Congress's member of parliament. 

Speaking to journalists at the Johannesburg Press Club on Tuesday night, De Lille also said that only through court action would the truth about the controversial R43-billion arms deal be revealed. 

De Lille, who first raised allegations of corruption in the arms deal in parliament two years ago, has been accused by the government of misleading the nation and the world, and has been challenged to produce evidence of her charges. 

Idseo, auditor-general and the public protector will probe the deal

The government has for some time complained it had not had the benefit of studying the so-called "De Lille dossier" that she handed over to Judge Willem Heath's Special Investigating Unit (SIU) in 1999. 

However, De Lille said last night that information relating to allegations of corruption in the arms deal had been handed over by the SIU to the Investigative Directorate for Serious Economic Offences (Idseo). Idseo falls under the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions which, along with the auditor-general and the public protector, will probe the arms deal. 

The SIU was excluded from the probe by President Thabo Mbeki. 

De Lille said: "All relevant information that was available to the SIU was passed over to Idseo, minus the documents that people have taken back." 

De Lille was at pains to stress the need for the focus to shift from the controversial exclusion of Heath's SIU, and consequent cries of a government coverup, to the actual investigation of the deal. 

'This is tantamount to starting an arms race' 

She still intends to go to court about whether or not the executive flouted a recommendation by parliament that the SIU be appointed to probe the deal. 

De Lille reiterated that the only unit with proper civil-law powers to investigate the procurement procedure and the validity of contracts, or have contracts set aside, was the SIU. The issue of the SIU's involvement had been personalised around Heath, who is not well liked in government, and consequently the "baby was thrown out with the bath water". 

She also questioned the need for the arms procurement. "South Africa has more arms than all the other SADC (Southern African Development Community) countries put together". This was tantamount to starting an arms race, she said. 

With acknowledgement to Marvin Meintjies and Independent Online.