A new storm has broken out around the probe into the R43-billion arms deal, this time involving Gavin Woods, chairperson of the parliamentary public accounts committee, Frene Ginwala, the speaker of the national assembly and RW "Bill" Johnson, the director of the Helen Suzman Foundation. 

Johnson interviewed Woods for Focus, the Helen Suzman Foundation publication, in which he questioned Ginwala's role in the work of the public accounts committee. 

Woods has said the article had contained many errors and that although he was given time to make some corrections, he had not been given a proper opportunity to correct all the mistakes. 

Article had contained many errors 

Johnson on Saturday agreed to make further changes before publication. This resulted in a day of last-minute negotiations between Woods and Johnson. 

Reacting to one of the excised comments made by Woods, Ginwala said "it is no secret that I have been wanting to leave parliament. There is, therefore, no question of my ever going into the cabinet." 

Woods is also quoted as saying: "On her insistence I drafted a letter to the investigators saying the committee is required to stand back from the investigation. She then insisted that the letter go even further and even wrote down what she wanted it to say. 

"I took her notes and agreed to consider [them]. I still have her notes. Under the pressure I felt, I accepted her suggestions even though there was no doubt that the main thrust was to try and change the committee's approach to the matter." 

Commenting on this part of the interview, Ginwala confirmed that she had discussed a draft letter Woods intended to send to the joint investigating unit. 

'The interpretation that I am accusing the speaker of ulterior motives is one of them' 

"During that discussion I did draft some notes on it, and those, I presume, are the notes Dr Woods is referring to. They were about the constitutional position of parliament and the powers of the committee, as I've reported to the committee," Ginwala said. 

Woods said in the interview he had been asked to give a general picture of his background and political views. He says he saw a draft of the interview when it was already on its way to the printers and was surprised to find it dealt with a wide range of issues. 

He had worked after midnight, after a function, to try to fix some of the problems, but the article still contained errors. 

"The interpretation that I am accusing the speaker of ulterior motives is one of them," he said. 

"Anyone with experience of written media interviews would be cautious about how they link and then interpret the import of separate paragraphs. To do so in this instance amounts to a misrepresentation and can only be seen as controversy seeking." 

Johnson has said that he takes partial responsibility for the confusion, attributing the other part to "Woods's work load". 

With acknowledgement to John Matisonn and Independent Online.