The chairman of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts, Gavin Woods of the Inkatha Freedom Party, resigned yesterday in frustration.

The resignation of Gavin Woods from the chairmanship of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) rings the alarm bells loud and clear. If there was doubt that the arms deal is riddled with deceit, corruption, graft and cover-ups, Woods’s comments on the reasons for his resignation have dispelled it.

In his lengthy report, Woods says Scopa - which is meant to function as a multi-party watchdog on the way the government spends public money - has been unable to ward off interference by the majority party.

He says the committee had its hands tied by an inadequate mandate and that the multi-agency Joint Investigation Team which was meant to look into suspicious aspects of the arms deal did a "very substandard job".

The consequence, according to the Woods report, is an arms deal which will cost far more that it should, will provide fewer jobs than it ought, has favoured suppliers and subcontractors for non-economic reasons and which is riddled with conflicts of interest.

There has also been over-eager interference by senior members of the government, says Woods, and the suggestion of criminal activities.

In established democracies, governments have fallen and ministers have resigned over much less.

The saddest part is that nothing Woods describes in such detail comes as any great surprise. His report is just the latest in a series of indications that the arms deal is a disaster.

The government must now ask itself which will be more damaging to it and to the country: to press on regardless in its determination to spend untold billions on weapons of war, and thereby line the pockets of rapacious middle men - or to call the whole thing off.