Policy Had to be Tailor-Made for Arms Deal: Armscor Witness [Sapa, 2004-11-23]

Publication	Sapa COURT-LD-SHAIK
Issued	Durban
Date	2004-11-23
Reporter	Sapa

There was no policy for the foreign acquisition of arms when the government embarked on the multi-billion rand arms acquisition process *1, the Durban High Court heard on Tuesday.

State witness David Griesel said this while testifying in the fraud and corruption trial of Schabir Shaik.

He is the assistant general manager of acquisition at the Armaments Corporation of SA Ltd, Armscor, which is an acquisition agent for the Defence of Defence.

Griesel said that a policy had to be tailor made for the process, which started in the early 1990s.

He said there was no policy for foreign acquisition after South Africa's markets were opened.

This was also the first time that external funding was requested from the Department of Finance and the first time the Department of Trade and Industry was involved.

He said the awarding of the tender was done on a points basis. In the case of the naval corvette tender, the German Frigate Consortium (GFC) got top marks throughout the entire process.

Griesel said at the time of the process, Shaik's brother, Chippie Shaik, was head of acquisitions for the Department of Defence.

Griesel said the main contractors in the acquisition process were allowed to chose their own sub-contractors *3.

The State alleges that Schabir Shaik solicited a R500 000 per annum bribe for Deputy President Jacob Zuma from French arms company Thomson-CFF (sic - CSF) in exchange for protection during investigations into irregularities into the arms deal.

It also alleged that through Zuma's influence Shaik and his Nkobi Holdings secured a slice of the arms deal.

The German Frigate Consortium won the Corvette tender and Shaik's Nkobi and Thomson-CFF (sic - CSF) had shares in ABF (sic - ADS), which was part of the GFC.

*1 Nonsense, the SA Government, both before and after the change of government in 1994 purchased major weapon systems from foreign suppliers.

The following are just some pre-1997 major acquisition examples from before, during and after the transition. Dates are indicative.

Pilatus PC-12 turboprop trainer fighter aircraft from Switzerland in 1997
Lockheed C-130F Hercules from UK and France starting in 1997
Cheetah C jet fighter aircraft from Israel between 1994 and 1997

Transition :

Pilatus PC-7 turboprop trainer fighter aircraft from Switzerland in 1994
Pilatus PC-7 Astra Mk 2 turboprop trainer fighter aircraft from Switzerland in 1994

Before :

Mirage F1AZ jet fighter aircraft from France between 1975 and 1997
Cheetah D jet fighter aircraft from Israel between 1986 and 1995
Cheetah E jet fighter aircraft from Israel between 1986 and 1992
Mirage F1CZ jet fighter aircraft from France between 1975 and 1992
Puma SA-330 medium helicopters from France between 1969 and 1997
Aloette light helicopters from France between 1970 and 1990
Strike craft from Israel between 1970 and 1980
Daphne Coastal submarines from France between 1970 and 1977
Agosta Coastal submarines from France between 1979 and 1980 (not delivered due to sanctions and later sold to Pakistan)

*2 Chippy was indeed driving the process under the immediate stewardship of Joe Modise and the indirect stewardship of the Ministers Committee.

*3 Nonsense, regarding the corvette combat suite, all the systems and sub-systems were nominated in terms of the September 1997 Request for Proposal, selected in terms of the May 1998 Request for Best and Final Offer and approved in terms of the Decision-Making Project Control Board Meeting of 8 June 1999.

Regarding the corvette platform, the choice by Blohm+Voss of the Maag gearbox was over-ridden by the DoD and Armscor who directed Blohm+Voss to choose the Renk gearbox with local partner Gear Ratio, a company whose shareholders included DGD Technologies in turn owned by Moeletsi Mbeki (brother of Thabo Mbeki), Diliza Mji (ANC treasurer-general of the ANC in kwaZulu-Natal) and M.S. (Seth) Seth Phalatsi, about to become Armscor Chairman for a day until caught with his snout deep in the Strategic Fuel Fund Oil redistribution trough.