For a man with an almost forensic memory, the continued inability of President Thabo Mbeki to recall whether he ever met with representatives of the French arms company Thales is odd, to say the least.

And very important too, for Thales (formerly Thomson and now, in SA, Thint) is suspected by the state of using corrupt methods to sell billions of rands of weapons technology to SA round about the time Mbeki is said to have met them in Paris.

The question arises in the context of unquenchable public interest in the arms deal and the extent to which leading political figures in SA may have benefited, by way of being bribed, from the contracts they were awarding. Former defence minister, the late Joe Modise, is widely believed to have lined his pockets during the process. Former deputy president Jacob Zuma is on trial on corruption charges directly related to the Thales weapons contracts.

So far Mbeki and the ministers who made the final decisions on the arms purchases — including current Public Enterprises Minister Alec Erwin, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel and Minister in the Presidency Essop Pahad — have shielded themselves from serious scrutiny by insisting that at the level of the primary contracts no illegality could possibly have occurred.

They say they are not responsible for the subsequent subcontracts which have attracted judicial inspection. In this regard they have been supported by an investigation by the auditor-general.

But, for some reason, it just isn’t good enough. The questions around Mbeki won’t go away. Zuma, of course, has not helped, charging in statements to the court trying him on corruption charges that one letter in particular — written by him to the then chairman of Parliament’s public accounts committee, Gavin Woods, and refusing the committee permission to probe the arms deal — was in fact written on Mbeki’s instruction. That puts the president in direct control of the political machinery that successfully sought to stop Parliament doing its job and investigating the deal, a dark footnote in our recent political history.

But among the many documents pulled together during the investigation and subsequent prosecution of Shabir Shaik, Zuma’s associate, are letters directly implicating Mbeki in the lobbying of the French arms dealers. One, purportedly from a senior Thomson executive, thanks Mbeki for a meeting in Paris in December 1998.

The nearest Mbeki has come to acknowledging this meeting is to concede that, yes, it may have taken place but that he cannot really remember anything about it.

But in what might prove the beginning of a managed admission by Mbeki, Pahad has now conceded that he (Pahad) did have a meeting with Thomson official Alain Thetard in February 1999. This appears to have occurred in Pahad’s office in the Union Buildings in Pretoria. Pahad had accompanied then deputy president Mbeki to Paris the previous December but it isn’t yet clear that he was at the meeting Thomson thanked Mbeki for.

If Pahad’s memory is beginning to clear there is no reason why Mbeki should still fail to remember his meeting, if indeed it took place and the thank-you letter is not a fiction or an act of madness.

What the public is entitled to know is why Pahad and Mbeki would have had meetings with Thomson at all. Much of the suspicion against Zuma, after all, revolves merely around placing him in a room with Thomson officials.

The big questions are about Thomson, though, not Mbeki. Not yet.

The French arms industry has a long history of buying foreign politicians rather than selling its product in an open market. Why did Thetard visit Pahad in Pretoria? What did he want? Did he get what he wanted? Pahad and Mbeki should tell us or the questions will dog them forever.

With acknowledgement to the Business Day.