Publication: Cape Times Issued: Date: 2007-01-08 Reporter: Sapa

DA Calls for Judicial Probe of Corruption in Arms Deal

 

Publication 

Cape Times
Date

2007-01-08

Reporter

Sapa

Web Link

 www.capetimes.co.za

 

JOHANNESBURG : President Thabo Mbeki should appoint a judicial commission to investigate the 1999 arms deal, the DA said yesterday in the wake of new revelations on the affair.

AFP reported at the weekend that Britain's Serious Fraud Office is investigating alleged "substantial payments" from BAE Systems to a senior South African defence ministry official *1 over the 1999 deal.

The Guardian said the office was liaising with South Africa's organised crime unit to probe the accounts of Fana Hlongwane, a prominent businessman and former adviser to the country's late former defence minister Joe Modise.

Modise, who quit the post in 1999 and died in 2001, was named in a South African parliamentary report that year as being involved in a company that stood to benefit from an overall $5,5 billion arms procurement deal.

The DA's Eddie Trent and Roy Jankielsohn said in a joint statement yesterday that from the outset the party had called for a judicial commission of inquiry, autonomous from the state *2, and with a comprehensive and overarching mandate, to investigate the arms deal in its entirety.

"President (Thabo) Mbeki should appoint a judicial commission to investigate the arms deal, he needs to make sure that it has a mandate which means it is not accountable to the executive and can operate autonomously, and which has the power to subpoena."

The numerous unco-ordinated, ad hoc and diluted investigations in the various aspects of the arms deal to date had only served to show up those areas and individuals which desperately need to be fully investigated, the DA said.

According to the Guardian, the Serious Fraud Office was investigating "substantial payments to a senior SA defence ministry official".

The paper alleges Modise received a £500 000 bribe from BAE and $10 million from a German consortium.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Cape times.


*1       And this is just the start - other than the British investigating the LIFT and ALFA deals, the Germans are investigating the corvette and submarine deals.

So far, only the Italians aren't investigating the helicopter deal - but they should, because this one is also highly suspect and is tainted by the hand of Chippy Shaik at least - the draft JIT reports show that very clearly, but not the final report.


*2      But is Mbeki going to set up as commission that will eventually end up in investigating his own involvement?

Roquefort is good and just maybe the moon is made thereof.

Maybe the DA will win the next election.