In response to :

"Don't read silence as proof of evil"

and :

"Damned if we do, damned if we don't"

Key
Faulty facts and/or logic.
Faulty analogy.

Joel Netshitenzhe, Head of Government Communications and the Policy Unit in the Presidency of the South African Government is correct when he concludes that government's position is one of "Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don't", as espoused in his opinion piece in The Mercury / The Star of 2005-01-14.

The only difference is that government's position was one of its own making, whereas that described by Joseph Heller in Catch-22 and endured by the fighter pilots is one brought about by fate.

Lead campaigner, defence contractor Richard Young, of C2I2, is pursuing his grievances in court and thus some of the matters are sub judice.

The only matter involving the arms deal that is presently before the courts, not necessarily sub judice, is that which involves the corvette combat suite.

The auditor-general is correctly wary of engaging in detailed refutations through the media, beyond reaffirming the joint report into the arms procurement programme released by his office, the public protector and the national Directorate of Public Prosecutions in 2001.

The auditor-general has nothing to be wary about in respect of the sub judice rule. What he is obviously wary about is telling the truth.

And so, as the Russians say, Vashka the cat continues eating. Those opposed to the procurement process are having a field day impugning the integrity of the auditor-general, accusing the government of cover-ups and calling for a commission of inquiry.

And while the Vashka the cat is eating, the fishers are fishing. Maybe the cat will get some fish.

Silence on the part of the government is interpreted as suggesting that there is something to hide.

Government's silence, plus the proof of extensive changes to the draft report submitted to them, form together a cogent argument that they have something to hide - indeed many things to hide.

Detailed engagement with the issues on the other hand may complicate court processes and detract from the responsibility of the auditor-general to report to parliament in the first instance.

It is a matter of public record that Young initially wanted the contracts to be cancelled and now he seeks compensation: The type of whistle-blower impelled by profound self-interest.

The Head of Government Communications's disingenious misrepresentation of the truth in saying that I initially wanted the contracts cancelled shows through : I never wanted the arms deal contracts cancelled and as far as I know there is no public record to this effect.

Further, I only have a professional interest in the corvette combat suite contract, which is a self-standing contract, even in respect of the corvette acquisition, let alone the other packages. In mid-1999, before the contract was signed on December 3rd 1999, I briefly considered making application to the High Court to interdict the completion of the contracting process due to the irregularities that I was sure, even at that time, had occurred.

On 1st September 1999, when personally requested to do so by the Chief Executive Officer of Armscor and the SA Navy's Chief Director of Maritime Warfare, I withdrew my threat of litigation which might have delayed the signing of the corvette contract on 3rd December 1999, on condition that my matter be properly resolved. This was agreed by them - this agreement only to be reneged upon by the DoD and Armscor.

Subsequently, under cross-examination by the attorney representing the German Frigate Consortium during the Public Protector's hearings, I said I could but hope that the sub-contracts for the relevant sub-systems would be cancelled so that my company's equipment would be re-instated. This is entirely different from wanting the arms deal contracts cancelled.

Nevertheless, it is an untruth to spout forth in public, as the The Head of Government Communications has now done, that I initially wanted the contracts to be cancelled.

Not only is this untrue, but regarding compensation by means of a damages claim, this course of action would be self-defeating because a court would not award such damages if the contract had been cancelled.

The joint investigation completely vindicated my allegations concerning the conflict of interest concerning the Chief of Acquisitions. Later, in another court process presently unfolding in Durban, my concerns about the conduct of the French-owned company Thomson-CSF and its South African subsidiary, African Defence Systems, appear well-founded. The French executive, a senior manager of Thomson-CSF International and chairman of the board of directors of ADS, has admitted in a sworn affidavit that an encrypted fax recording a bribery transaction with the deputy president of this country was indeed authored by him.

Indeed, according to incontrovertible court evidence, one of the Head of Government Communications's immediate superiors in the government department in which the both work, asked for a R1 million donation from the French company in question.

According to fairly credible authority, there is prima facie evidence that the Head of Government Communications's superior was paid such a consideration for protecting the French company during the very investigation which culminated in the joint investigation report in which his superiors in the Executive collaborated with the Auditor-General in obliterating most of its damning findings against the government and the foreign suppliers.

His line of attack is "to prove" that the auditor-general changed his findings under political pressure. Hopefully, Young and his supporters believe, public opinion will be turned and perhaps even that of the courts on the matter of his compensation.

Regarding the ominous observation that I might believe that even the courts might be turned on the matter of my  compensation, hopefully such opinion of the courts has not yet already been set on the matter of an award for damages.

But two matters of principle require clarification.

Firstly, it is the issue of the status of drafts in any working environment and the manner in which the auditor-general's office conducts its investigations. To state the obvious: Drafts would not have been drafts if they were not, as a matter of principle,

On the matter of principle that draft reports are not subject to amendment, unfortunately, not in this case. When reporting on a forensic investigation into the conduct of an auditee, the investigators might legitimately produce numerous internal drafts which culminate in a final draft for external publication or possibly review.

However, the AG has on numerous occasions averred before Parliament's Main Assembly, before SCOPA, in public and in sworn affidavits, that the findings and conclusions contained in the final draft report were not changed in any way and that the only changes were in respect of readability and duplication.

Any honest comparison of the final draft report and the final joint report can only lead to the clear and unequivocal conclusion that every finding or conclusion implicating the government and its contracting partners has been removed.

In its routine auditing of books of government departments, for instance, the auditor-general's office conducts investigations by going through documents and interviewing some staff. Then they prepare what is referred to as a management letter, and meet senior managers to clarify issues.

Regarding the routine auditing of books of government departments, the use of the management letter and meetings with senior managers to clarify issues, this is only true in a regulatory audit, not a forensic audit.

The arms deal investigation can hardly be described as a routine audit of government books. The arms deal investigation was spawned by a regulatory audit of the procurement process and which found numerous preliminary indications of failure to conform to acceptable procurement practice and therefore recommended a forensic investigation.

The draft report of the AG actually makes the conclusion that nearly all of the findings of the Special Reviews were valid. This finding was removed from the joint report.

But indeed, even if arms deal investigation was a regulatory audit it would be for senior managers to provide the appropriate clarifications, not the political heads of departments.

If on any of the draft findings there are factual matters that need correction, this is further pursued by the auditor-general's office and such corrections are made.

During the management letter process only factual corrections are made, not findings, conclusions and recommendations such was in the case of the arms deal draft report.

This in our view is the standard relationship between an auditor and "auditee".

In this case the investigated party was a suspect, not an auditee.

In any case, if it was indeed true that this was a valid instance where an interaction between the auditor and auditee was required, then the author's principals in the Presidency and MINCOM can simply make the JIT's management letter and their responses available to us. But the problem for them is that there was no management letter. This is not to say that there were no interactions, only that they were secret and opaque.

Related to this is the logic in the Promotion of Access to Information Act which excludes records that contain "a preliminary, working or other draft of an official of a public body"; subject to administrative fairness directly affecting a citizen's well-being. This is precisely because a draft is a draft is a draft.

Regarding that the Promotion of Access to Information Act excludes records that contain a preliminary, working or other draft of an official of a public body, this was not  the interpretation of the High Court. Legal precedent is that the Act only protects drafts until the final version is published. Then the drafts have only historical status and are not protected.

In any case, where any records, including drafts of reports, might indicate failures to comply with the law and it is in the public interest (as is surely the case with the AG's draft reports into the arms deal), then this restriction is in any case invalidated.

On the details, Young and his supporters have selected convenient quotes from the drafts to prove their point.

In that only certain quotes were selected, in the public domain there is only limited publication space or air time. This is a matter of practicality, not misleading selectivity. Indeed the author makes this point in his very next sentence.

Later in his missive this not so brilliant wordsmith refers to a "campaign of confusing detail". His logic suffers the classic, but simplistic, fallacy of inconsistency - when it suits his argument there is dishonest selectivity, when it doesn't suit there is purposefully confusing over-elaboration of detail.

They revel in the knowledge that, given the limitations in dealing with this matter through the media they will befuddle the public and project fundamental wrongdoing.

The only parties who are presently befuddled are the Head of Government Communications, his principals in the government and their stooges such as the Auditor-General.

Regarding fundamental wrongdoing, this was indeed projected by the findings of the final draft report in many specific instances, only that this projection never reached the intended audience of report, being Parliament and the public at large - this being due to the direction intervention of the Executive with the connivance and duplicity of the Auditor-General.

Confining ourselves to this selective quoting, let us examine some of the facts - the better to differentiate between the fury of a Young scorned and reality.

I was not scorned in anything other than three of the corvette sub-contracts.

The facts that the Head of Government Communications should be explaining to the public his why his penultimate boss, the then Deputy President, was having clandestine meetings in Paris with senior executives of Thomson-CSF International during the middle of a formal acquisition process and why in particular he was prepared to guarantee them the contracts for the corvette combat suite and the sensors (the search radar and sonar). He should further try to explain to all of us how such intervention on behalf of a foreign company, one known not to let ethics get their way in securing defence contracts, further the constitutional imperatives of a government system of procurement that is fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective.

So far, it is only known that the new deputy president, one of the Head of Government Communications's present superiors, secured a handsome donation to protect this selfsame foreign company during the arms deal investigation. The question that should be being asked and the answer that the Head of Government Communications should be assisting in formulating is why Thomson-CSF required protection in the first place. Was it anything to do with clandestine meetings between the then deputy president and his ambassador to France with the top executives of Thomson-CSF International in Paris; or possibly to do with this ambassador's interlocutor's further dealings with Thomson-CSF?

On the subject of facts, the Head of Government Communications should be explaining to us more about the often repeated government statement that they had nothing whatsoever to do with the choice of sub-contractors. Better still, he should put this into writing and have it commissioned by a commissioner of oaths. We can then let a magistrate or judge decide who tells the truth and who does not.

Differences on what decision a particular meeting took on the Hawk and Aermacchi MB339: ministers who took part in this meeting with officials were also present when the recommendation was made to the cabinet committee and if they were of a different view, they would have stated this.

On the matter of the selection of the Hawk or the Aermacchi MB339 jet trainer the very existence of two sets of minutes for the same meeting shows a very severe lack of integrity in the procurement process.

But the excising of the reporting of the existence of two sets of minutes shows a very severe lack of integrity in the joint investigation reporting process.

The decision to select the Hawk went beyond matters of costs and offsets. Indeed it did, as the final joint report asserts - and this may reflect an instance where strategic considerations about long-term mutual dependencies had to carry the day, as is the responsibility of cabinet to weigh such matters.

The procurement should have started off with needs analysis and confirmation thereof. Other considerations such as offsets should be secondary This is what the draft report finds. The final report excludes these findings.

This is besides the fact of the Hawk allowing for direct transition by trainee pilots to the Gripen and that the Hawk can be adapted to operate as a fighter aircraft.

The SAAF's preference was clearly for the Aermacchi MB339. The evaluations based on both the costed and non-costed value systems determined this preference. The MB339 was nearly half the price, was just as suitable for lead-in training to a jet fighter and could also be adapted as a secondary fight (viz. Impala, its older brother).

There may have been concern on acquisition of Gripens because of the shortage of fighter pilots: The first of these planes were to be delivered in a few years, and a programme of training was put in place.

The lack of pilots is a comparatively trite argument concerning the acquisition of the Gripen jet fighter. Far more significant is that the SAAF had taken 38 essentially brand new Cheetah C third generation fighter jets into service in 1997, the very same year that the Cabinet, spurred on by the Ministers on Trade and Industry and Defence and infiltrated by the Chief of Acquisitions, initiated the Arms Deal.

The squadron of Cheetah Cs had just been acquired from Israel and upgraded at great expense to the SAAF with over-the-horizon target detection and missile engagement capability (more or less without par south of the Sahara). This would have taken the Cheetahs into service until 2012 at the earliest. What's worse, is that the Cheetahs had a pre-planned 10 year life extension option built into the design. This would have taken the Cheetahs into service until 2022.

Having just spent about R2,5 billion in 1990 Rands on the Cheetah Cs, probably equivalent to R7,5 billion in 2004 Rands, it is not difficult to understand why the Chief of the SAAF concluded that the SAAF would be severely financially strained by the acquisition of the Gripen (along with its Siamese twin the Hawk).

The government is confident that when the auditor-general's office is afforded an appropriate platform, it will clarify these and other issues. In the intervening period, we can only hope that the public is not stumped by the campaign of confusing detail.

The proper conduct of a responsible government would be to facilitate, support or not obstruct the "appropriate platform" for reviewing the conduct of the Auditor-General and the ministers in changing the arms deal report. This platform should be entirely independent and allow unfettered cross-examination of all involved government ministers and all the investigators.

Media theory has it that the flight of a story does indicate its worth. There is the flamingo, steady in its trajectory, propelled by facts. Then there is Icarus which ventures dramatically close to the sun and hits the ground with a thud.

And then there is the poor old Dodo who could not fly at all and got eaten to extinction by all the feral felines on its previously safe island haven.

The Head of Government Communications and his superiors in the Executive are no flamingoes when it comes to the truth.

And so, from the Friday fanfare in two newspapers, to reference in one title on the Sunday, to attempts by Young and his supporters to keep the story alive on the Monday and Tuesday... by midweek the story was as good as dead.

It remains to be seen whether the news of the AG and ministers collaborating in changing the investigation report is dead.

But it is a massive fallacy of logic and reasoning to think that Government's ignoring the situation and its failure to provide an appropriate response to a matter of national importance is the right thing to do.

Indeed, in this instance, it is better to keep quiet and await the formal process in parliament, if so decided upon.

The Head of Government Communications's missive, like so many previous ones issued by both his unit and by his superiors in the Executive, is long on rhetoric and faulty analogy, but critically short on facts and logic.

The bottom line is that their stooges, the three members of the JIT, formally stated that there were no material or substantial changes to the final draft issued to them under the false pretext of due process. Now that they have been caught redhanded, the contention is that it is a matter of principle that drafts are there for the changing. Sorry - wrong.

The best leg spinner on the planet would be embarrassed if he was achieving this amount of spin - he would know the pitch had been doctored.

The Head of Government Communications should stick his figurative head back in the sand where it better belongs and leave non-fiction to those more familiar and comfortable with it.

But at least we now know how the government intends to deal with this outrage - give the problem to Parliament and then let the ruling party's 70% majority steamroll any effort to determine the truth - Viva.