In a move that casts a further shadow over government’s tainted arms deal, it has emerged that the sister company of one of the largest suppliers in the arms deal aided the African National Congress (ANC) in its national election campaign last year.

The ANC yesterday confirmed that MAN Truck & Bus, based in SA, lent the party 10 trucks and two buses in January last year for its election campaign.

MAN Truck & Bus is a sister company of MAN Ferrostaal, which heads the consortium that is supplying submarines to SA.

Both companies belong to the MAN group of Germany.

MAN Ferrostaal was lagging in its contractual offset obligations at the time the deal was brokered, and it faced being penalised by government.

Government is still to decide on whether it should be penalised — six months after it revealed that MAN Ferrostaal was behind in its obligations.

MAN Ferrostaal’s media adviser in SA, Stephen Laufer, brokered the trucks deal, although he claims he handled the matter in his personal capacity.

Arms suppliers are contractually bound to facilitate investments in projects that add to domestic economic growth.

Laufer said the deal was announced to the media last year.

He did not have this on record, and Business Day could not find any reports.

In fact, the legal agreement between MAN Truck & Bus and the ANC — which is in Business Day’s possession— binds the parties to confidentiality.

Democratic Alliance (DA) spokeswoman Helen Zille said it was quite clear why government was allowing companies to get away without delivering on the offset agreements “if they are making donations to the ANC in return for being allowed to duck out of offset agreements”.

With acknowledgements to Carli Lourens and the Business Day.