Publication: The Citizen Issued: Date: 2007-02-09 Reporter: Paul Kirk

Ex-ANC MP Blows Open Arms Deal Dirt

 

Publication 

The Citizen

Date

2007-02-09

Reporter

 Paul Kirk

Web Link

 www.citizen.co.za

 

Kwazulu-Natal - Chippy Shaik, the former head of Acquisitions in the Defence Department, “misled Parliament to cover up his own arms deal corruption – and has been allowed to get away with it by the ANC”.

That is the view of Andrew Feinstein, a former top ANC politician, who adds this is a sure sign Shaik is keeping the secrets of politicians more senior than himself who were also involved in arms deal corruption.

In reaction to Feinstein’s claims spokesman for the Shaik family, Mo Shaik, said his brother had been interviewed many times in connection with the arms deal and various allegations and had “nothing new to say”.

He continued that none of the allegations now being made against his brother was new.

Shaik is at the centre of an investigation by German authorities into bribes paid to secure contracts for German companies to supply frigates to the SA Navy.

At the weekend the German publication Der Spiegel revealed German prosecutors had seized documents showing Shaik may have received a $3 million bribe.

According to Feinstein the fact it has taken a German probe to unearth these allegations against Shaik is just one of many indications Shaik is possibly being protected by the presidency and the ANC.

Feinstein sat on the powerful Public Accounts Committee of Parliament, but resigned in protest over the cover-up of the deal and emigrated.

This week Feinstein broke his silence and told The Citizen he had almost completed an explosive book on his time in Parliament and the controversial arms deal, which would reveal what he knew about arms deal corruption, and the later cover-up of corruption.

He also confirmed he had given Britain’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) an interview. The SFO is investigating corruption involving BAe Systems and their sale of jets to South Africa.

But Feinstein would not comment on this, saying that in terms of British law information given to the SFO was legally privileged, and that he could not divulge what he had told them.

The former MP also hinted Tony Yengeni may have been a scapegoat for other crooked arms deal politicians who had benefited far more than he.

Yengeni pleaded guilty to defrauding Parliament, and covering up the fact he had been given given a discount on a luxury car by an arms company.

Feinsten said he suspected Yengeni was sacrificed to make it appear justice was taking its course.

As the senior ANC representative on the Accounts Committee, Feinstein questioned Shaik when he was called before the committee in Parliament over his involvement in awarding contracts to his own brother's company.

Shaik told Parliament that when discussions came up around his brother Schabir’s company he had recused himself.

“We later found that to be a lie. Scopa obtained confidential documents showing that not only did Chippy stay in the room when his brother’s company was discussed, he participated in discussing his brother’s company.

“I wrote to the Speaker of Parliament pointing out we had evidence Shaik had lied to the House, but my letter was ignored.”
Feinstein said he found this “bizarre”.

“Yengeni was sent to jail for lying to Parliament. That is exactly what Shaik did and yet nothing happened.”

Feinstein said he always suspected Shaik was at the centre of arms deal irregularities, and that he was being protected by senior ANC officials because it was likely at least one senior politician had received money, and the ANC itself had probably benefited from companies awarded contracts.

Feinstein did not name the senior politician who took the cash.

Speaking from his home in the United Kingdom, Feinstein told The Citizen: “The arms deal and the subsequent cover up of the corruption around the arms deal was the start of a moral decline in the party, a decline that has led to the situation where in the words of Thabo Mbeki last year the crisis engulfing the ANC at the moment is ‘the worst in the history of the party’ .”

Feinstein was the ranking ANC MP on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) – the body instrumental in exposing the Sarafina scandal – where the Minister of Health had spent R14 million to have Durban playwright Mbongeni Ngema produce a play about HIV/Aids.

The procurement process for the play was deeply flawed, so Scopa investigated and put a resolution to Parliament refusing to authorise the expenditure.

This forced the Director General of the Health Ministry to resign – and through legal action the state recovered half of the money spent.

Feinstein said Parliament should have done the same with the arms deal – demand the deal be cancelled and that crooked arms companies hand back the payments they had received.

Feinstein said the Auditor-General, Shauket Fakie, had failed parliament badly by removing key investigators from the investigation, and allowing his report on the arms deal to be edited and altered by Mbeki and Cabinet Ministers.

The report that Fakie had presented to Parliament, while heavily edited and sanitised, still revealed such damning deficiencies in the arms deal that “Parliament would have been within its rights to refuse to authorise the expenditure for the deal”.

With acknowledgements to Paul Kirk and The Citizen.