The Democratic Alliance (DA) has called on President Thabo Mbeki to follow up the decision to sack his deputy Jacob Zuma with the appointment of a judicial commission of inquiry into allegations of corruption in SA's multi-billion rand arms deal.

"It is the next logical step to take. The full story of the arms deal has yet to come out," Democratic Alliance public accounts spokesman Eddie Trent said in a statement.

The DA said that SA would remain haunted by the ghost of the arms deal if the president did not appoint such a commission.

"A judicial commission of inquiry will have the necessary powers to subpoena witnesses that will help expose the full extent of the corruption," Trent said.

Meanwhile, activist Terry Crawford-Browne has charged that the firing of Zuma was only a bid to divert attention from the government's multi-billion rand arms deal.

Browne said that instead of acknowledging that the government succumbed to massive European pressures to buy armaments, Mbeki was making Zuma a "sacrificial lamb".

In a statement issued in the name of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, Browne said Mbeki's announcement of Zuma's firing in Parliament yesterday emphasised that the joint team that investigated the deal had exonerated the government of improper conduct.

"This paragraph is contradicted by virtually every other paragraph in the 380 page report *1 which found that every primary contract in the arms deal tendering process was riddled by irregularities," Crawford-Browne said.

"President Mbeki must still reveal why he and his cabinet colleagues succumbed to European pressures to subvert SA's hard-won democracy."

With ackowledgements to Sapa and Business Day.

*1   Which was over a 1 000 page draft report until The Executive got hold thereof and said :

"Out dirty spots".

• Advocates Christoffel Fourie of the Office of the Public Protector; and
• Advocate Lionel van Tonder of PriceWaterhouseCoopers Forensic Services (Pty) Ltd [PWC Forensics], "insourced" to the Office of the Auditor-General;

obediently complied forthwith, thereby more-or-less obliterating 14 months of good solid work done by, inter alia, :

• Advocate Charles de Chermont of PWC Forensics, "insourced" to the Office of the Auditor-General;
• Advocate Jan Swanepoel of PWC Forensics, "insourced" to the Office of the Auditor-General;
• Mr Hermie Mostert CA(SA) of the Office of the Auditor-General;
• Mr Gilbert Swats of the Office of the Auditor-General;
• Advocate Gerda Ferreira of the Directorate of Special Operations;
• Advocate Annemarie van der Kolf of the Directorate of Special Operations;
• Advocate William Downer SC of the Directorate of Special Operations;
• Mr Ko Pather, "insourced" to the Office of the Auditor-General;
• Mr Jabu Mahlangu, "insourced" to the Office of the Auditor-General.