French arms manufacturer Thales denied on Friday that President Thabo Mbeki had allegedly indicated the company would receive a contract during a secret meeting before SA’s arms deal tenders were closed.

“We would like to strongly deny any such wrongdoing,” chairman and CE of Thales International for Africa Pierre Moynot said in a statement.

He said Mbeki and Thales had not engaged in “unethical behaviour”.

Thales (formerly Thomson-CSF) was responding to a statement made by Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Eddie Trent in Parliament on Wednesday.

Judge Hilary Squires found this month in his judgment in the Schabir Shaik trial that the Durban businessman had solicited a bribe of R500 000 a year on behalf of former deputy president Jacob Zuma. Zuma is to appear in court this week to face two charges of corruption.

Trent said he had an encrypted fax that indicated Mbeki attended a secret meeting with the arms company.

He alleged that Mbeki indicated that Thales would receive a contract.

“At no time was the contract ‘guaranteed’ and we have had, as any bidder, to accept all the requests that were put to us,” said Moynot.

The company was not part of the tendering process at the stage during which the meeting was alleged to have taken place. *1 The documents Trent referred to merely stated that there were no fundamental objections for Thales’ local subsidiary to bid at a later stage, said Moynot.

Since the enactment of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development rules, Thales had produced a code reflecting its commitment to anticorruption policy, to which it adheres, said Moynot.

Mbeki was originally scheduled to answer Trent’s questions in Parliament on Thursday but would now only do so in August, said DA chief whip Douglas Gibson.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Business Day.

*1 Wrong.

Anyway, Pierre Moynot appears to admits that the meeting took place.

It took place on or about 17 December 1998 In Paris.

The Request for Offer for the corvettes was issued on 13 February 1998. On 16 May 1998 the GFC submitted their offer which included ADS as Corvette Combat Suite supplier. On 18 November 1998 the Cabinet of the South African Government announved the GFC as the preferred supplier of the Corvette. On 3 December 1999 The South African Government, represented by the Minister of Defence and the Secretary for Defence signed the Corvette Contract with the European South African Corvette Consortium, including the GFC, African Defence Systems and Thomson-CSF NCS.

Simple arithmetic indicates that the Thomson-CSF meeting with Mbeki in December 1998 was right in the "middle" of the acquisition process (September 1997 to December 1999), indeed right in the most sensitive part, the negotiation phase (November 1998 to August 1999).

So Mr Moynot's charming gallic courtroom candor has reverted to common public lying.

Moreover, from other encrypted Thomson-CSF communications, it appears that there were a number of other meetings (up to three) between them and Mbeki in the first half of 1999 - this time in South Africa rather than Paris.