What possible connection other than transferable offset points that are peddled around the world is there between the purchase of three submarines from Germany and a Chinese container manufacturer at Coega?

The offsets for the submarines alone were originally trumpeted by the late Joe Modise as guaranteed to result in foreign investments and exports worth R30,3bn and to create 16251 jobs (Business Day, November 1998).

Offsets for the total arms deal were supposed to amount to R110bn, and to produce 64165 jobs.

Do our cabinet ministers still believe in the tooth fairy? They were gullible and were conned by the notoriously corrupt international armaments industry.

The 1bn Ferrostaal stainless steel plant subsequently morphed into a condom factory. And now even the condom factory is proving a figment of the trade and industry department's imagination.

Offsets promoted by the department and Armscor were the premise that got SA into the whole arms deal fiasco. Armscor's chairman Ron Haywood said SA would recoup R4 for every R1 spent on armaments.

Academic studies unanimously concur that offsets are inappropriate either for military procurement or economic development.

Nor can offsets be reconciled with the constitutional requirement under section 217 that government procurements be conducted in a "fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective" manner.

Even worse than the corruption, the minister of finance in signing the loan agreements that give effect to the arms deal has for 20 years ceded control of SA's economic and financial policies to European banks, governments and the IMF. He has recklessly and irresponsibly put our necks into the noose of "third world debt".

An urgent priority related to cancellation of the arms deal is a total prohibition on offsets.

With acknowledgements to Terry Crawford-Browne and the Business Day.