South Africa's controversial arms deal is under the spotlight again after the DA yesterday called on Parliament's Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) to reopen its investigation into the multi-billion rand weapons purchase.

DA MP Eddie Trent ruffled ruling party feathers when he introduced a resolution calling for further probes into allegations of fraud, corruption and high-level political cover-ups relating to the deal.

In response, ANC MPs stated that the ruling party will not tolerate fresh probes, warning that such a move would threaten the "apolitical" nature of the committee's work.

ANC MP Lorraine Mashiane said the ruling party "will not be nice" about the matter.

APC MP and Scopa chairperson Themba Godi granted a request from several MPs for a decision on the resolution to be postponed to next week's meeting to give them more time to study the one page resolution and to confer with their respective parties on the matter.

The ANC's senior representative on Scopa, MP Vincent Smith, said: "When we (ANC committee members) come back (next week), it will become a party political position it will no longer be the apolitical work of Scopa. It will take Scopa back to the days of party political (infighting)".

Judith February, head of Idasa's political information and monitoring service, last night welcomed the latest appeal for Scopa to revisit the arms package, saying "many unanswered questions" remained about the deal.

"The ANC now has a real chance to show whether it is interested in principled oversight, or whether it is only interested in opportunistic changes.

If the ANC in Parliament is serious about oversight, they should be picking up the cudgels themselves and not be waiting for others to do this," she said.

ID leader Patricia de Lille whose party is not represented on Scopa welcomed the resolution, but suggested the whole arms deal issue had now moved beyond Parliament and into the arena of criminal investigations.

"The ID simply wants justice. Those people who took kick-backs and tainted the name of our country ... must be brought before an open court," she argued.

De Lille pointed out that the only structure legislatively equipped to cancel arms deal contracts and get money back from those who may have benefited illegally was the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).

She said that was why the government fought "to have the SIU removed from the Joint Investigating Team (JIT) appointed to investigate aspects of the deal."

Retired ANC MP and former ranking member of Scopa, Andrew Feinstein, alleges that the ANC received money from successful arms deal bidders in order to fund its 1999 election campaign.

With acknowledgements to Deon de Lange and Cape Argus.