Durban: The defence department's former chief procurement officer, Chippy Shaik, lied to parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), the high court here has been told.

Testifying at Schabir Shaik's trial on fraud and corruption charges, former Scopa chairman Gavin Woods said Shaik's brother, Chippy, had "misinformed" Scopa when he said he had recused himself from meetings relating to the government's multibillion-rand arms deal.

Woods, an IFP MP, said Scopa had a number of concerns about the acquisition process and that conflict of interests because of association was among them.

He said Chippy Shaik had been "extremely influential" throughout the procurement process and Schabir had an interest in the arms deal, particularly the corvettes contract.

Woods said a South African supplier had made a bid to provide the information management suite for the corvettes and, according to documents, had been given the work. The contract was eventually given to Thomson-CSF.

Woods said the auditor-general had carried out a special review of the defence acquisition process because of the huge sums involved.

Scopa was concerned about allegations that some things were amiss. It called in the auditor-general to hear how he had arrived at certain conclusions.

Scopa had looked at the "materiality" of the report, Woods said. After considering recommendations by the auditor-general that an investigation be taken further, but with a more forensic nature, Scopa decided to call all the roleplayers in government to appear before it.

It had taken accounting officers from various departments through an array of questions and used the transcripts from these proceedings to ask for further documents, Woods said.

Some of Scopa's other concerns included the cost to the state, the offset arrangements, and the selection of private contractors. Scopa was also concerned about the process in which the fighter trainers contract had been awarded as it felt "interventions took place that were very far removed from the procurement process". Also, the government had no interest in the selection of sub-contractors.

From the auditor-general's review, it appeared that key stages of the procurement process had broken down.

Asked by Billy Downer, for the state, why, in its introduction to its report, Scopa had referred to arms deals as high-risk transactions, Woods said it was well-documented that malpractices occurred whenever arms deals were concluded anywhere in the world.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and the Cape Times.