Democratic Alliance MP Eddie Trent yesterday fired a broadside at President Thabo Mbeki, questioning whether the president himself had acted irregularly in the run-up to the arms deal and ended up being ordered out of the National Assembly for his pains.

Trent made a members' statement asking whether Mbeki himself had secretly met and irregularly given assurances to a French armaments company implicated in arms deal corruption.

Trent based his controversial set of questions on two faxes from Thomson-CSF, both naming Mbeki. The first, an encrypted fax from November 1997, was part of the court record of the trial of Schabir Shaik.

The fax refers to a person called the "Taileur" which a translator's note indicated refers to a cutter, probably the person responsible for drawing up the shortlist *1 of preferred bids in for arms procurement .

The Shaik trial heard that this "tailor", whose name popped up in other documents during the case, could have been either Shaik's brother Chippy, who was then chief of acquisitions for the Department of Defence. But the trial also heard that "the tailor" was the nickname used for former president Nelson Mandela's tailor and confidante, Yusuf Surtee, who played a go- between role between prospective bidders in the early stages of procurement.

Trent took the fax, which was from Pierre Moynot, a Thomson CSF executive, to refer to Chippy Shaik and questioned why Mbeki, who at the time was deputy president and headed the ministerial committee on the arms deal, did not stop Shaik from secretly meeting bidders.

Trent said another fax, this time a letter to the then South African ambassador in Paris Barbara Masakela, indicated Mbeki had in fact met with Thomson executives most probably on December 17, 1998.

The DA MP said Mbeki needed to explain whether this meeting took place and if so what it was about and why there was no public record of such a meeting.

But, as Trent well knew, Mbeki was not able to be in the National Assembly yesterday and ANC MP, Dennis Bloem, objected to Trent's statement saying it was not fair to imply such things about the president when he was not able to reply.

Deputy speaker Gwen Mahlangu-Nkabinde said convention dictated that MPs, including the president, should not be accused of improper conduct other than by way of a substantive notice of motion. Trent refused to withdraw his statement and was ordered to leave.

With ackowledgements to Chiara Carter and Cape Times.

*1 The body responsible for the initial stages of the SDPs was the Strategic Offers Committee (SOFCOM). SOFCOM has co-chairpersons, Mr Shamin ("Chippy") Shaikh, as the DoD's Chief of Acquisitions, and Mr Heinrich de Waal Esterhuyse, Armscor's General Manager for Acquisition and also Acting Managing Director.

It is unthinkable, even in the chaotic and irregular management of the SDP acquisition by the DoD and Armscor, that Mr Yusuf Surtee, owner of a clothing manufacturer and close confidante of the President, Mr Nelson Mandela, could have been responsible for creating the shortlist of overseas bidders.

The SDP acquisition process commenced in about September 1997 with Requests for Information (RFIs) from the South African Government to about a dozen other governments and received about the same number of expressions of interest (the precise number depending of the type of equipment).

It was the responsibility of SOFCOM to create a shortlist of these interested parties, based on certain criteria such as equipment suitability, strategic considerations, etc. and then issue Requests for Offers (RFOs) from the shortlisted countries. This happened early in 1998 (13 February for the Corvettes, 14 February for LIFT and ALFA).

The only conclusion that can be made is that the person to whom reference is made in the Thomson-CSF encrypted facsimiles regarding responsibility for the shortlist, is Mr Chippy Shaikh. There is a multitude of evidence of Thomson-CSF executives being in regular and close contact with Mr Shaikh throughout the whole period of the acquisition process. Mr Shaikh had advised his superiors in the SA Government, in particular Messrs Mbeki, Modise and Erwin of his conflict of interest regarding his brother Schabir Shaikh and had formally declared his conflict of interest and recusal on 4 December 1998.

Yet the entire Ministers Committee, including Messrs Mbeki, Modise and Erwin, allowed, Chippy Shaikh to continue to act at all levels of the acquisition process, including the giving of presentations to MINCOM and even acting as the MINCOM secretary. Certain of the matters deliberated by MINCOM specifically included the Corvette Combat Suite which was the precise matter giving rise to the conflict of interest.

Furthermore, the primary body responsible for the selection of both the prime contractors for the Corvette, as well as its sub-systems contractors, was the Project Control Board (PCB). Of the eleven PCB meetings held of the period of the acquisition process between September 1997 and October 2000, Chippy Shaikh chaired nine of them. On four occasions he declared his conflict of interest, but in seven meetings he took part in discussions and decisions in the mater in which he had declared his conflict of interest.

Yet despite having formally declared his conflict of interest and recusal to the PCB, no other member of the PCB, including his rank superiors, Chief of the Navy VAdm Robert Simpson-Anderson and Chief Executive Offer of Armscor Mr Llewellyn Swan, objected to his flagrant contravention of his recusal.

Indeed, VAdm Simpson-Anderson both blatantly lied under oath to the Public Protector's hearings regarding the conduct of Chippy Shaikh and the PCB, as well as wrote a formal letter in this regard to the Chairman of SCOPA. Why was he trying to protect Chippy Shaikh?