Publication: Mail and Guardian Issued: Date: 2007-01-18 Reporter: Sapa

Spotlight on Blair's Involvement in Arms Deal

 

Publication 

Mail and Guardian
Date

2007-01-18

Reporter

Sapa

Web Link

www.mg.co.za

 

A British opposition party has called on Prime Minister Tony Blair to come clean over his involvement in a controversial R30-billion arms deal between the South African government and British arms manufacturers BAE, the Star reported on Thursday.

"The British government and the prime minister must give assurances that they will provide all the support required for the Serious Fraud Office [SFO] to conclude its investigations involving BAE and South Africa," Liberal Democrats leader Menzies Campbell told the newspaper.

The paper said the matter was raised in the British Parliament on Wednesday where Campbell challenged Blair on controversial deals struck with Saudi Arabia and Tanzania.

In 1999 BAE won a contract to supply South Africa with military aircraft, including 24 Hawk fighter trainers, at allegedly double the price of a rival Italian bidder, the report said.

In the Tanzanian deal, BAE secretly paid a $12-million commission into a Swiss account in a deal that led to country buying a controversial military radar system.

A Tanzanian middleman, who has a long-standing relationship with military and government figures, has admitted that the sum was covertly moved to a Swiss account by BAE.

The back-door payment represented 30% of the contract value. The East African state had to borrow to finance the deal, which critics said was unnecessary and overpriced.

Blair supported the 2002 sale but former Cabinet minister Clare Short says she and the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, opposed it.

The recent admissions by the Tanzanian middleman, Sailesh Vithlani, led Short to call for BAE's prosecution if the allegations were proved. She said the prime minister had been personally responsible for forcing the licence for the Tanzania deal through the Cabinet.

"No 10 insisted on letting this go ahead, when it stank," she said. "It was always obvious that this useless project was corrupt.*1"

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Mail & Guardian.


*1       It was always obvious that the Hawk and Gripen project was useless and corrupt.

We still have somewhere between 30 and 50 highly capable Cheetah C medium fighter aircraft with at least another 5 years of life ahead of them, which could simply and not too expensively be extended by another 5 or 10 years.

It only takes 2 to 3 years to acquire an existing aircraft from the onset of the acquisition process and so the time to either initiate an upgrade or replacement programme for the Cheetah C would have been about now, not 1997.

But it was all done in the name of bumiputera with the ardent support of John Major, Tony Blair, British Aerospace, Thabo Mbeki, Alec Erwin, Joe Modise, Chippy Shaik, Diliza Mji, Fana Hlongwane, The ANC, inter alia.

People like Secretary for Defence, Lt Gen (Retd) Pierre Steyn opposed it, but said nothing at the Public Protector's hearings and instead took a senior post at the SA Reserve Bank.

Adv Sibongile Mzinyathi of the of Directorate Special Operations and Messrs Hermie Mostert and Gilbert Swats of the Office of the Auditor-General interviewed Gen Steyn under Section 28 of the NPA Act, but very little of his entirely incriminating, on-the-record, under oath testimony found its way into the final version of the JIT Joint Report.

Sies tog.

The SAAF does need a jet trainer to replace the Aermacchi Impala. But it doesn't need and cannot afford the Hawk 120, especially as a lead-in trainer for the Gripen.

I notice Mr Helmoed Heitman has not responded to my response to his conjecture that the Aermacchi MB339FD suddenly went from zero to hero in terms of the SAAF's evaluation.

Seems like he didn't read Chapter 4 of the JIT Joint Report completely or correctly.

The truth, according to the JIT Joint Report, is that the MB33FD was a zero for the SAAF's Advanced Fighter Trainer (AFT) requirement under the 1992 Project Ukhozi and a hero for the SAAF's Lead-In Fighter Trainer (LIFT) requirement under the 1997 Project Winchester.