So said former judge Willem Heath when he took the stand yesterday at the trial of Durban businessman Schabir Shaik, who has pleaded not guilty to corruption and fraud charges.

The former judge told the court that at the end of 1999 he was contacted by Patricia de Lille - now leader of the Independent Democrats - who said she had received information on the arms deal, which she wanted his unit to investigate.

To do this, the unit had to get a presidential proclamation. But, said Heath, the unit had learned from past experience that such proclamations were granted only with hesitation, or not at all, when the subject was controversial or sensitive.

The unit had therefore decided it should gather a substantial body of reasons why it should be allowed to investigate the arms deal.

He told the court that he had discussed the matter with the Auditor-General, who published a special review of the arms deal in 1999 (sic - actually September 2000).

The court had heard from government auditor James Edward van Heerden *1 that the conclusion in this review was that there was a deviation from acceptable procurement practices during the arms deal for which no plausible explanation could be given. He also said they had advised that a special investigation be launched, with a specific focus on the contractors and subcontractors involved.

"When the Auditor-General brought out their report," Heath explained, "we decided that we will base our application for a proclamation on their discovery of irregularities."

He said they had filed their application for a proclamation.

Then the parliamentary standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) decided to have a thorough investigation of the arms deal.

The plan was to include Heath's unit, the Public Protector, the Auditor-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

However, later the three offices (sick - stooges) said there was no need for the Heath unit to be involved in the probe.

"The information that we had available was much stronger than mere allegations," Heath told the court.

"I have no doubt that if objective consideration was applied *2, the president would have had no choice but to issue a proclamation," he added.

The trial continues.

With acknowledgement to Estelle Ellis and The Star.

*1 Wally van Heerden - a Deputy Auditor-General, who, along with Etienne Smith, not only came to these conclusions, but were then removed from the main investigation by Stooge 1 on the pretext that they were the regular DoD Audit team and therefore that the functions were incompatible.

It can be said without a shadow of a doubt that if it had not been for this intervention by Stooge 1, that the JIT's Joint Report would have been quite, quite different *3.

It should also be remembered that during the time of the preliminary investigation leading up to the Special review, i.e. from about September 1999 to September 2000, that the investigation was labouring under the direction of the Audit Steering Committee, chaired by the Acting Secretary for Defence, Mr M. Netsianda with committee member, Mr Shamin Shaikh.

*2 Desperate consideration was applied - roll out the stooges *3 - viva.

*3 "The custom of posing sweetheart questions to the executive perpetuates a tradition within the ANC, as one observer crassly put it, of farting each other warm." -- Commentator Rhoda Kadalie on what she said was the lack of independent thinking in Parliament - viva, Baqwa, viva.