DA's call to reopen probe rejected

The door has been left slightly ajar for further investigations into the arms deal after parliament's standing committee on public accounts agreed to follow up on unfinished business contained in existing reports on the subject.

Scopa members yesterday rejected a resolution introduced by Democratic Alliance MP Eddie Trent - asking for new allegations of corruption in the multibillion-rand deal to be investigated - but allowed for existing "resolutions and recommendations" to be revisited.

Despite initial opposition from ANC members, committee chairperson Themba Godi, from the African People's Convention, agreed with the "content" of the resolution and is to have the reports dusted off for further scrutiny.

"I will be instructing our researchers today to go and pull out these resolutions and go through them. It shouldn't take them a week - the reports are here in parliament.

"We are going to have a look at them and then find out from the relevant parties how far they have gone with the matter(s)," he explained after the meeting.

The reports in question contain numerous resolutions and recommendations for action and further investigation of issues relating to the arms deal. Trent maintains that many of these were never fully implemented or acted on.

Significantly, the report of the Joint Investigating Team - a multi-agency team appointed by parliament to investigate the arms deal - recommended that steps be taken against government officials who may have benefited from arms deal subcontracts.

It also suggested further scrutiny of civil servants who may not have declared their business interests in the arms deal, while playing a part in the tender processes.

Former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein - who resigned from the party after his efforts to get to the bottom of the arms deal were apparently frustrated by his party bosses - recently accused the ANC of receiving money from arms deal bidders for its 1999 election campaign. This is contained in his tell-all book After The Party.

Since parliament effectively called a halt to its investigation, a number of countries - including Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Switzerland - have begun their own investigations to determine whether any of their nationals paid bribes to South African politicians and decision-makers.

With acknowledgements to Deon de Lange and The Star.