President Thabo Mbeki could be grilled by his own party on what he knows about the controversial multi-billion-rand arms deal.

The ANC's new National Executive Committee (NEC) has appointed a committee to draft a "detailed factual report" on the arms deal.

Asked if Mbeki was likely to be called to testify, ANC treasurer-general and committee member Mathews Phosa said the party "will not be tying their (the committee members') hands in terms of who they should speak to and who they should not speak to".

"The new NEC is acting properly. We are not interested in who did what, but we want to find out what is going on. We don't know what is going on and we don't understand the arms deal," he added.

Phosa said the committee had been given "very broad terms of reference" and members were to decide "in their wisdom" how to go about the probe.

ANC president Jacob Zuma who faces fraud and other charges in August in connection with the arms deal indicated in an affidavit in 2005 that Mbeki was "very much involved" in the process.

Sources in the Zuma camp in the new NEC said they believed Mbeki should answer for his role in the arms deal in his capacity as deputy president of South Africa at the time.

The investigations of the committee, which will gather information from "official arms deal sources", could see more senior party and government leaders embroiled in the controversy over expensive arms acquisition.

The committee members are Phosa, ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, the SACP's Jeremy Cronin, NEC member Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, former SANDF general Siphiwe Nyanda, Education Minister Naledi Pandor, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa and Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.

In November 2001, ANC MPs unanimously accepted the report of the Joint Investigating Task Team that was established by Mbeki to look into the arms deal.

This report, which declared that the acquisition of approximately R40 billion worth of military hardware was above board, was criticised by opposition parties at the time particularly because it had excluded the Heath Investigating Unit from the multi-agency probe.

ID leader Patricia de Lille one of the first to blow the whistle on allegations of fraud and corruption relating to the arms deal yesterday said the new move by the ANC "borders on interference in the judicial process".

She suggested that only an independent judicial inquiry would get to the bottom of the arms deal saga.

She also pointed to the irony that Tony Yengeni who served 20 weeks of a four-year prison sentence for failing to disclose to Parliament a discount he received on a vehicle bought from one of the companies involved in the arms deal now serves on the very NEC that has ordered a fresh probe into the debacle.

DA MP and arms deal spokesman Eddie Trent echoed De Lille's call for a "proper re-opening of the probe".

"The ANC has always gone out of its way to obstruct a proper investigation into the arms deal.

"It is disingenuous for the party to now go and draw up a report on a process it has done its best to try and manipulate," he said.

It is not the first time a that an ANC sympathetic to Zuma has ordered a probe separate from judicial and government investigations.

Motlanthe, who also serves on the committee to look at the arms deal, once challenged a the outcome of a government investigation into the hoax e-mail scandal and ordered a party investigation into mail that was purported to have been written by senior state officials, tarnishing his and Zuma's name.

The majority of the NEC that supported Mbeki at the time rejected the Motlanthe-sanctioned report.

In another indication of the radical power shift that has taken place since Zuma trounced Mbeki at the ANC conference in Polokwane, the new NEC went much further than its predecessor in condemning the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

The NEC condemned the "general conduct" of the NPA and expressed "grave misgivings" about the timing of the fraud, corruption, racketeering, money laundering and tax evasion charges levelled against the new ANC president.

Professor Susan Booysen, from the Nelson Mandela Metro University, said yesterday the fact that the new NEC was willing to express itself so strongly on these "sensitive political issues" is an indication of the "strategic u-turn" that has taken place in the party and that there would be no "holy cows" from the Mbeki era.

Meanwhile, DA MP and acting leader Joe Seremane yesterday criticised the ANC's decision to endorse Zuma as its presidential candidate for the general election of 2009, suggesting the ruling party had put its own interests above those of the country.

"The chances are slim that Zuma's court case will be wound up before the next election. This raises the unpalatable prospect of a sitting president facing corruption charges in court ...

"Whether he is proven innocent or guilty, this will leave an indelible stain on South Africa's reputation abroad ..." he said.

With acknowledgements to Deon de Lange and Cape Argus.