The Democratic Alliance (DA) asked Parliament’s standing committee on public accounts yesterday to reopen the investigation into alleged irregularities in the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal.

“We think there is circumstantial evidence that the truth is not being told,” DA MP Helen Zille told a media briefing at Parliament yesterday.

She said it was the duty of opposition parties and the media to dig into the matter and uncover the truth.

The party wants the role of the executive in changing a draft report of auditor-general Shauket Fakie on the deal re-examined.

DA public accounts spokesman Eddie Trent said he had asked that the matter be placed on the agenda of the public accounts committee’s next meeting.

The DA has also asked President Thabo Mbeki to appoint a judicial commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of irregularities in the deal.

The prospects of success on either front are remote, however.

The African National Congress contingent on the committee has in the past resisted attempts to reopen questions on the arms deal, while Mbeki has not yet replied to the DA’s request for an inquiry.

Trent presented the media with documentary evidence supporting his claim that cabinet ministers had intervened to change Fakie’s report to exonerate government of any contractual irregularities.

The documents include a handwritten note with the instruction that the following be added to the conclusion of the report: “The joint investigation team found no evidence of impropriety, fraud or corruption by cabinet or government,” and, “Government co-operated with the investigating team in their endeavours”.

The DA alleges that the existence of a detailed set of correspondence between the presidency and Fakie’s office gives a comprehensive picture of what changes and/or omissions in the final report were requested by the executive.

Trent also criticised the fact that Fakie’s report did not make adequate reference to scathing criticisms by former defence secretary Lt-Gen Pierre Steyn about the selection of BAE-Saab’s Hawk-Gripen aircraft when it was clearly more expensive than the Italian alternative.

Steyn told the joint investigating team that the arms procurement process was riddled with large-scale irregularities stemming from the fact that government had decided beforehand that the BAE-Saab bid would win “and damn the cost”.

Steyn reportedly said he was appalled that the investigation was designed to give legitimacy to the “political manipulation” of the process.

“The controversy surrounding the arms deal is still very much alive and it will not go away until these and many other questions are properly answered,” Trent said.

“The challenge now is for Parliament to exert its oversight role and ensure that both the executive and the (auditor-general) are made to account for their conduct,” he said.

With acknowledgements to Linda Ensor and the Business Day.