While the tale of Vickers OMC is an interesting one, the minutes of the Project Citron meeting - that detail how the company came into a lot of work overnight - also tell an interesting tale about defence acquisition chief Chippy Shaik.

The minutes suggest Shaik may not, as has repeatedly been claimed, have recused himself from meetings where his brother Schabir Shaik's arms company was discussed - at least not at the time he claimed he did.

Paragraph 15 of the minutes details how Chippy Shaik has declared his possible conflict of interest in an earlier meeting and that it has been noted in paragraph 13 of the minutes of the meeting held on April 28 1999.

However Shaik told Parliament's Select Committee on Public Accounts that he declared his interest much earlier - on December 4 1998.

Item 10 of the meeting held on August 10 discusses combat suites for the corvettes - a contract Schabir Shaik was bidding for - and there is no record of Chippy Shaik leaving the room. Although he is not recorded as speaking, it appears he may have listened in to the deliberations around this programme that affected his brother's business.

Shaik himself signed the minutes to approve them and so he could hardly not have noticed an omission as important as recording his departure from the room. Sitting in the room as he appears to have done, he ran the risk of being accused of leaking information to his brother.

With acknowledgement to the Paul Kirk and the Mail & Guardian.