South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal was in the spotlight at the fraud and corruption trial of Schabir Shaik in the Durban High Court on Tuesday morning.

tate witness David Griesel was taking the court through the various steps involved in the acquisition process.

Griesel joined Armscor, the country's armaments corporation, in 1979 where he is currently the assistant general manager of acquisition.

Griesel said Armscor's main objective was to act as an acquisition agent for the Department of Defence.

The State alleges that Shaik, who has pleaded not guilty to fraud and corruption charges, solicited a half a million rand a year bribe for Deputy President Jacob Zuma from French arms company Thomson CSF.

The bribe was in exchange for protection during an investigation into irregularities into the arms deal. *1

The State says through Zuma's influence, Shaik and his Nkobi Holdings company secured a slice of the arms deal.

On Tuesday, the court also heard how Shaik's brother Chippy, who was head of acquisition at the Defence Department, also served on one of the acquisition management committees, SOFCOM. *2

Chippy Shaik had also made presentations to the committee which finally decided on the preferred bidder.

The German Frigate Consortium (GFC) eventually won the corvette tender. Schabir Shaik, Nkobi Holdings and Thomson CSF had shares in African Defence Systems, which was part of the GFC. *3

With acknowledgement to Sapa.

*1  The question is : Just why did Thomson-CSF need post facto protection during the investigation?

Who else had they already bribed to get the deal in the first place?

*2  Chippy Shaikh did not only "serve" on SOFCOM, he was the co-chairman of SOFCOM.

This person, who had declared a conflict of interest involving his brother's interest in ADS and Thomson-CSF, such declaration having been made to his superiors Ministers Modise and Erwin, Deputy President Mbeki and Armscor CEO Llew Swan "very early on" in the acquisition process and formally on 4th December 1998, also had the following committee memberships :

and for the Cherry on the top :

• Member of the Audit Steering Committee to Investigate Arms Deal Irregularities (chaired by M.P. Netsianda, Acting Secretary for Defence).

Great positions if one can get them at the age of 37 and having just a year or two of defence acquisition experience and after declaring one's conflict of interest.

*3  ADS was not part of the GFC.

In response to the DoD's Request for Proposal, issued by Armscor and wherein the Buyer (i.e. DoD and Armscor jointly) stipulated that ADS should play a leading role in the acquisition of the Corvette Combat Suite, GFC proposed in their Offer of May 1998 that ADS would play such a role.

It is completely false that GFC nominated ADS to have such a role - all the GFC did was to include ADS's role in response to a stipulated nomination by the customer.

Once the DoD and Armscor were declared preferred supplier for the Corvette by the SA Cabinet in November 1998 after recommendation by SOFCOM, GFC, ADS and Thomson-CSF Naval then formed a higher level consortium for the provision of the entire Corvette called the European South African Corvette Consortium (ESACC).