The corruption report attachments now contain technological information belonging to a third party

State arms procurer Armscor has changed its tune on the reasons for withholding details of an internal investigation into corruption.

Faced with possible legal action in an unusual access to information case brought by the Human Rights Commission (HRC), Armscor put aside its objection that the corruption report's attachment could reveal sensitive state secrets. Now it claims it contains technological information belonging to a third party.

Advocate Kaya Zweni, the HRC lawyer, said Armscor has been given 21 days to notify the third party and another week to respond to the commission's request for the release of attachments to a report on alleged corruption. If they don't comply, the issue would go to court in line with the provisions of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).

"Their arguments about state secrets have disappeared. They will have to respond by December 24," said Zweni.

This is roughly the same date targeted for the tabling in parliament of auditor-general Shauket Fakie's initial audit of alleged corruption in the 1990's Armscor deal with African Defence Systems (ADS), a French armaments company. The deal was part of a technology transfer programme called Project Croco.

ADS is also in the spotlight in the Schabir Shaik corruption trail in Durban in terms of its links with Thint, a French arms deal beneficiary, in the corvette subcontract.

In October, the HRC demanded the attachments saying that the access to information legislation made provision for an override of state security considerations if the documents could prove corruption, and that its release was in the public interest.

Armscor responded by requesting a meeting where they again brought up the state secrets argument. Zweni told them that they had to find a way to release the information, even if some sensitive sections were blacked out. When the deadline for releasing the information lapsed last week, Armscor came up with the new concern of third party information.

Bertus Celliers, the spokesperson of Armscor, said that a number of third parties' technology was involved. "We have looked at the situation and the big problem now is to obtain permission from the third parties to release the information. The issue of state security has been put aside for now," Celliers said.

Johannesburg-based ADS and the parent company Thales in France have consistently declined to comment.

The HRC took up the unusual test case of pitting state security and public interest against each other after former ADS engineer Fritz Louw spent six years fruitlessly trying to obtain the full investigation report.

It followed Louw's first alarm about the corruption in 1998, which caused him to lose his job at ADS in the project to upgrade surface-to-air missile systems for the air force.

Louw claims irregularities included fraud, theft, corruption, perjury and defeating the ends of justice, such as "work that was invoiced but not done at all, work invoiced and later completed while booking time on it in subsequently tasks and work invoiced when done to a certain level", which "effectively defrauded the taxpayer".

Armscor's internal investigation concluded that some deficiencies existed in ADS undertakings to upgrade the Cactus surface-to-air missile system, but the report stated that no instances of fraud or collusion between ADS and Armscor were found.

In 2002, Armscor relented in terms of PAIA and released the main report to Fritz Louw, but is still refusing to release the attachments.

In a twist to Armscor's latest excuse, Louw now claims separate letters from ADS and Armscor, dating between 2002 and 2004, show that each claimed that the information contained in the documents belonged to the other. Neither would acknowledge that the information was its own, which would make it more difficult for them to refuse access.

"The information that I applied for, all belongs to the state and Armscor," Louw insisted this week.

"A database output report clearly shows that all the documents are covered by formal Armscor contracts and [the information] funded by the taxpayer [in terms of technology funds]."

Independent Newspapers is in possession of the letters and the database report.

With acknowledgements to Christelle Terreblanche and the Sunday Independent.