Italy's biggest construction company, Impregilo SpA, is being hauled before the Lesotho High Court in the sixth corruption prosecution relating to the multi-billion dollar Lesotho Highlands Water project.

And as if taking on one corporate giant is not enough, the indictment links the multinational giant, Fiat SpA, through its shareholding, to the bribery claims as well.

In July the attorney-general of Lesotho, Fine Maema KC, said: "This is the beginning of a biblical story of David and Goliath."

He said that it was possible to change First World perceptions about the commitment of African countries to combat corruption.

Impregilo SpA has been charged with five charges of bribery. The trial has been set down for April.

The series of prosecutions deals with bribes paid to a businessman from the small Free State town of Ficksburg, Jacobus Michiel du Plooy, and the former boss of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, Masupha Ephraim Sole.

They are led by Durban senior counsel Guido Penzhorn. The Lesotho Highlands Water Project is one of the biggest dam projects in the world with contracts estimated at $8 billion. In the early 1990s questions were raised about the administration of the process, especially the role of Sole, after auditors Ernst & Young uncovered a number of irregularities. Sole was eventually dismissed but not before authorities uncovered his Swiss bank accounts.

Penzhorn was then asked to trace the money. After he and his team secured the release of Sole's bank records through Swiss authorities they discovered that contractors and consultants had been paying money to Sole through agents.

One of these was Du Plooy. According to the indictment the Impregilo bribe, paid to Du Plooy into a Swiss bank account, totalled about $750 000. Du Plooy admitted that he paid half of this to Sole. He pleaded guilty to a charge of corruption and was fined R500 000.

Sole was also convicted of corruption and jailed for 15 years. Three companies have also been convicted of paying bribes to Sole. They are German consulting firm Lahmeyer which was fined R10m, Canadian firm Acres International, fined about R15m and French engineering firm Spie Batignolles, which pleaded guilty and was fined about R10m.

With acknowledgements to Estelle Ellis and the Sunday Argus.

This is the spirit.

But while Lesotho takes on the real problem, the bribees, we only take on the minnows and let Thint (Pty) Ltd, Thales International and Thomson S.A. off the hook - all for a miserly admission that one their directors was the author of the encrypted fax.

And then this French benefactor has the temerity to claim that the fax had nothing to do with a bribe, not even anything to do with a donation to a bursary trust - just disjointed thoughts on separate issues and lacking circumspection.

It just must have been a donation to a deputy president's education trust in respect of an effort to protect Thomson-CSF from current investigation (Sitron).

Now having had a Top Secret clearance, I new that Project Sitron was a secret code name for a confidential project being run by the Department of Defence for the acquisition of four brand new Meko A200S frigate platforms from Blohm+Voss with combat suites from Thomson-CSF.

Now it seems that the request for a R500 00 per year payment was indeed made (done) in encoded form by the beneficiary using a code previously defined by the Thomson benefactor and in the presence of a third person and at the instance of that third person.

Nothing looks disjointed or lacking circumspection to me. This is a premeditated, pre-arranged, pre-planned, straight down the line of standard Thomson and French way of doing business, not only in Africa, but worldwide and even back home in France.

The only thing that is not clear is why only one and not three donateers will not be gracing us with their presence before His Lordship Mr Justice H.G. Squires when the Defence opens their case early in the New Year.

It is interesting, but it could be at least three times more interesting.

If a Lesotho court could do it and can do it, so could we and so can we and so should we.