Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille was a "useful idiot" in the hands of those who failed to secure a slice of the multimillion rand arms deal, according to Finance Minister Trevor Manuel.

Manuel launched a blistering attack on De Lille in the National Assembly yesterday afternoon after the ID leader again charged that the controversial arms deal was riddled with corruption and called on the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to investigate and charge six individuals for their role in the arms deal.

Using her parliamentary privilege, De Lille named the men - including one who had already died - as:

Ron Haywood - then-chairman of Armscor, the state's arms manufacturer.

Chippy Shaik - brother of Schabir Shaik, the convicted financial adviser to former deputy president Jacob Zuma, and then procurement chief at the Department of Defence.

Ntsiki Mashimbye - then-chairman of parliament's joint standing committee on defence who was entertained by Michael Woerfel, the German boss of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company who was charged with fraud and corruption along with former ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni.

Richard Carter *1 (sic) - the deceased agent for arms contractor BAE Systems in South Africa who allegedly paid fees to the ruling ANC.

Vivian Reddy - the Durban businessman who has been closely linked to Jacob Zuma.

Jayendra Naidoo - the chief negotiator for government's strategic defence procurement package, better known as the arms deal.

De Lille was unaware that Charter, whose name she had misspelt in her speech, had died. *1

"These names, Madam Speaker, should be on South Africa's Most Wanted List," she said, adding that the ID wanted the NPA to further investigate the "De Lille dossier".

A fiery Manuel said it was "quite disingenuous" for De Lille to claim as her own the documents used by anti-arms deal campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne. Manuel charged that De Lille was showing contempt for the constitution and its Chapter 9 institutions, the public protector and the auditor-general, who along with the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions, had conducted a "thorough-going investigation" into the arms deal.

De Lille also called for the NPA to investigate why the government had paid $17 million more than the market price for each of the Hawk jets from British Aerospace and R750m more for each of the German frigates.

But Manuel retorted: "We didn't go to a bargain basement sale to find the cheapest aeroplane on the market - we wanted to equip the air force with the best." The same applied to the corvettes, said Manuel.

With ackowledgements to Jeremy Michaels and Cape Times.

*1  Richard Carter is correct. He is a non-white person working for BMW South Africa and at one time possibly acted for the German Strategic Alliance when bidding for the combined Strategic Defence Package, i.e. all seven weapon systems. He is very much alive.

Richard Charter was a white person who was both Chairman of British Aerospace South Africa and Osprey Aviation, the latter acting as BAe's agent in the LIFT and ALFA deals. Richard Charter died in what appears to be a canoeing accident on the Orange River (which runs on the border of hi game farm) on the border between South Africa and Namibia.