Mr Mbeki's Secret French Connection

IN OUR COVER story we tell about President Thabo Mbeki's French connection. There was, of course, also an English connection, and a German - not to speak of the Kebble connection and all those other happy Party funding connections.

A recap on the English connection sets the scene. In the apartheid arms embargo years, British Aerospace (BAe) still had their man in Johannesburg: Richard Charter, who traded very lucratively, for the duration, as Osprey Aviation. Come 1994 he was back in uniform as BAe Systems SA. From then on BAe was actively vying for a slice of the South African defence pie: not only to sell us fighter planes, but (less well known) also for a chunk of the navy splurge. It had a team of experts in SA for months working on a navy bid. But within days in early January 1999, BA's navy bid was off and its naval men were gone. It transpires they'd got a directive from somebody 'very, very high up' to get out of the country.

Richard Charter would later explain to a trusted noseweek source: 'We were told late in December 1998 that if we didn't withdraw from the naval bid, we stood a good chance of losing the promised aircraft deal as well.' How come BAe was so sure of getting the fighter deal? Charter's reply: 'That was settled in a smokey room deal between [then UK prime minister] John Major and Thabo Mbeki already in 1995.'

How smokey was the deal? British investigators estimate that Charter was involved in laundering an estimated R1.8-billion in 'commission' from BAe to the ANC and/or its senior members, within weeks of the deals being signed in 1999.

The ANC has a problem: the vast majority of its supporters are desperately poor. They cannot afford food, let alone fund a political party in a modern democracy. So to fund its infrastructure and campaigns, the party must look to funders it would rather not identify.

Who demand their pound of flesh in profit or policy changes.

That way we end up paying R50-billion-plus for inappropriate defence equipment in order to provide the party with perhaps half a billion in funding. (The other half billion-plus went to the suits.)

Surely there are more rational - and less corrupting - ways of funding the democratic process? Can't we, as taxpayers, just agree to pay the party a billion - and get to keep the R49-billion in change?

We do not raise the subject in defence of Jacob Zuma: bums on the take must take what they get. But friends of the president should note that it's natural for politicians to use any dirt that comes to hand against their competitors. It's the way democracy benefits from the insight that, when thieves fall out the truth will out.

With acknowledgement to Noseweek.