Publication: Cape Argus Issued: Date: 2007-01-18 Reporter:

Blair Stays Mum on Arms Deal Bribe Row

 

Publication 

Cape Argus

Date

2007-01-18

Reporter

 Associated Press & Staff Reporters

Web Link

www.capeargus.co.za

 

BAe link under fire in parliament

Pressure is mounting on UK Prime Minister Tony Blair to explain his role in controversial arms deals involving alleged kickbacks by British manufacturer BAe - including a R30 billion contract to supply aircraft to South Africa.

Liberal Democrats leader Sir Menzies Campbell challenged Blair in the British parliament yesterday over his decision to halt a probe into a big Saudi Arabia arms deal.

Sir Menzies also raised allegations about BAe deals involving Tanzania and alleged R1 billion kickbacks to South African politicians and business figures.

Blair angrily refused to publish the government's response to queries by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on the scrapping of the probe into alleged BAe kickbacks.

Sir Menzies had asked whether he would release the government's response "so that the British public can judge for themselves".

"They can judge for themselves because we have made clear the reasons why my advice certainly was that this investigation would do enormous damage to our relationship with Saudi Arabia," said Blair, adding that Britain needed Saudi help to fight terrorism and promote peace in the Middle East.

The Serious Fraud Office was investigating allegations that BAe ran a £60m (R8.4bn) "slush fund" offering sweeteners to Saudi officials in return for lucrative contracts as part of a 1980s arms-for-oil deal with BAe .

Pressure is also mounting on the South African government to reopen the arms deal investigation after senior BAe Systems officials were named in a leaked report on the Serious Fraud Office probe.

BAE won a contract in 1999 to supply South Africa with military aircraft, including 24 Hawk fighter trainers, allegedly at double the tender offer of a rival Italian bidder.

It has now also emerged that the SFO is investigating alleged "substantial payments" from BAe to a senior South African Defence Ministry official over the 1999 deal.

The Guardian newspaper said the office was liaising with South African counterparts to probe the accounts of Fana Hlongwane, a businessman and adviser to former defence minister Joe Modise, who quit in 1999 and died in 2001.

Meanwhile ID leader Patricia de Lille - who has harried the government on the multibillion-rand arms deal since she released her dossier in Parliament in September 1999 - has announced that she is to fly to Britain and Germany to meet investigators.

"South Africa must now reopen its investigation into the Hawk jets which it bought from BAe," she said yesterday.

De Lille has regularly come under fire from senior government ministers over her insistence that the arms deal investigations be reopened.

She said it was time that South Africans who had received bribes - with senior government officials among those suspected - were named.

"I will be flying to London shortly to meet with the Serious Fraud Office and to Germany to meet their National Prosecuting Authority for discussions over the arms deal inquiry," De Lille said yesterday.

During a TV interview on Monday night, President Thabo Mbeki said the investigation had no bearing on the South African arms deal *1.

With ackowledgement to Cape Argus.


*1      During a TV interview on Monday night, President Thabo Mbeki said the investigation of the South African arms deal by Auditor-General Shauket Fakie and others had concluded that there was no wrongdoing on the part of government.

The truth of the situation was that Thabo Mbeki and others persuaded Fakie and the Two Others to change his draft report's findings after showing the report to Thabo Mbeki and others a month before the report was published. This resulted in very very substantial omissions in the final report as well as the crucial inclusion that the government was innocent and that the government contracting position was not flawed.

Fakie had the temerity on no less than two, maybe three or more, occasions to tell parliament that the final joint report was identical in content to the draft report with only matters of readability, described quaintly by him as "user-friendliness", be the difference.

Shauket Fakie CA(SA) is an out an out liar. The differences between the final and draft report are vast in terms of volume, content, style and especially findings.

I have the documentary proof - sourced out of his own office.

Shauket Fakie should have been impeached by parliament for misleading them and the country's citizens by lying to them.

It's not too late to censure this Chapter 9 sell-out.