It is difficult to overstate the importance of the office of the auditor-general. This government agency probably does more to ensure that taxpayers' money is appropriately spent than any number of other oversight committees or lobby groups.

In doing its job, it has two crucial strengths. First, its staff have the technical ability in a vital area - where the cash is being spent. The auditor-general's office does every day that thing which investigative journalist are so often encouraged to do: follow the money. Second, it operates from the inside, working most often behind the scenes. This means it can quietly put things right without embarrassing politicians or causing interdepartmental rancour.

Since Parliament's oversight role and that of the auditor-general office overlap, it is appropriate that the auditor-general is aligned with Parliament and not with the executive. Consequently, it is Parliament's body, and is intended to assist Parliament in performing one of its most crucial roles, that of ensuring the policies of the executive are put into practice by the bureaucracy in a cost-effective way.

The auditor-general's position in government as a check on the executive and bureaucracy places it in a tricky position. Its function is to improve the efficiency of government, but no government likes to be second-guessed, or even worse, to get caught spending recklessly.

But like it or not, being the strict schoolteacher in the school of government is the auditor-general's function. If it is not performing effectively, a crucial strut in the framework of government is weakened.

Consequently, the recent disclosure that Auditor-General Shauket Fakie edited critical parts fo the arms deal investigation before it was presented to Parliament needs the closest scrutiny. What is at stake is not only the colossal expense of the contracts themselves but the very nature of government.

Fakie's argument is that the report was not changed in any significant way and to the extent that it was, the changes were intended to assist with investigations on the part of the public protector and the Scorpions. With the best will in the world and in the context of what happened, these arguments are weak.

What happened is this: As is well known, the SA Navy stated its desire to buy several light ships to patrol SA's shoreline. But the ships would of course be useless without an effective armaments package. Fortunately, it has been working on just such a thing with several local companies, including for one aspect of the system, a company by the name of C2I2. As is also now well known, the head of procurement, Chippy Shaik, had a conflict of interests in the tendering process, since his bother was a major stakeholder in the local branch of French arms company Thompson.

In the published version of the report, Shaik's role was questioned. But, crucially, the authors of the report were not able to come to a definitive decision on whether the contract was improperly granted to Thompson.

The publication of the draft version of the report does not differ from this conclusion to any great extent. But it reveals something potentially much more alarming. It details the extent to which Shaik apparently misled the standing committee on public accounts about his brother Schabir's relationship with Thompson and about the nature of the competing product.

The significance of this is tremendous. If the head of the procurement team is shown to be corrupt, how can the other contractors be sure whether their products have been fairly chosen or not? The whole edifice of the arms procurement exercise could crumble.

Given the uncertainty surrounding the issue, it is incumbent on Fakie to release the full, unedited version of the original report. It is the only way to go if government hopes to keep the arms deal intact.

With acknowledgements to The Editor and the Business Day.