Spotlight on arms dealer

Deputy President Jacob Zuma's reply in parliament about whether he met French businessman Alain Thetard may come back to haunt him when he is questioned in the national assembly about it this week.

Questions have been raised in the media about Zuma's response to parliament in March last year when he was asked whether the had met Thetard, a director of the South African arm of French arms company Thomson-CSF, later known as Thales.

Raenette Taljaard (DA), who put the question to the deputy president, is to ask Zuma whether he will reconsider his reply and if not, why not.

She is to ask this tomorrow during regular question time, when members of the executive reply to inquiries from MPs.

If Zuma is prepared to reconsider, Taljaard is to ask him when the meeting with Thetard took place and what was discussed.

Although Zuma may choose not to reply on the grounds that the meeting is sub judice in the light of the trial of his financial adviser, Schabir Shaik, Taljaard believes the deputy president owes parliament and South Africa a few answers.

"I was very concerned with the reply I received in 2003," she said yesterday. "It was not a categorical denial."

Whether Zuma chose to reply would go to the heart of the executive's accountability to parliament, Taljaard said.

The MP also wants to know whether Zuma would reconsider his statement, made to parliament's ethics committee last year, that the payments he received through Shaik were interest-bearing loans.

The payments have been examined in the KPMG audit report submitted at Shaik's trial on corruption and fraud charges.

The committee found the payments were interest-bearing loans and ruled that Zuma was therefore not obliged to disclose them in the register of members' interests.

Hendrik Schmidt (DA) said his party would await the outcome of the Shaik trial, including any findings about the credibility of witnesses, before deciding whether to raise the matter before the ethics committee.

Shaik's counsel has told the Durban High Court that Zuma met Thetard and Shaik during the weekend of March 10, 2000 and not, as the state contended, on March 11.

The state alleges that after this encounter Thetard drew up a handwritten note, which appears to be a draft of an encrypted fax sent to his superiors, about a R500 000-a-year fee.

Taljaard asked Zuma last year: "Whether he had any meetings on 11 March 2000 and/or on any other specified dates with Mr Alain Thetard ... and/or Mr Schabir Shaik in Durban or elsewhere."

Zuma replied: "I did not meet Alain Thetard on 11 March 2000 in Durban or anywhere else in South Africa." Zuma also said he was not in a position to remember everyone he met.

With acknowledgement to Angela Quintal and the Cape Times.