"Pressure on Mbeki to 'come clean' on arms deal"

Did you refuse to assist Scorpions in arms-deal investigation

Did you meet arms company Thint in Paris in 1998

Will you set up a judicial inquiry to put scandal to rest

President Thabo Mbeki has been challenged to explain in parliament why he allegedly refused to assist the Scorpions' investigation of the government's controversial arms deal.

The Democratic Alliance will submit questions in parliament today in an attempt to force Mbeki to say if he was approached by the Scorpions, or any other investigating authority, for information about the corruption-plagued arms deal. And whether he refused. DA spokesman Eddie Trent said Mbeki should say, once and for all, whether he met representatives of French arms company Thomson-CSF (now known as Thint) in Paris in 1998.

"We will continue to ask this question, even though it is deemed to be out of order by the parliamentary Speaker [Baleka Mbete]," Trent said.

The DA will also ask Mbeki to say if he intends setting up a judicial inquiry into the arms deal, a call that has been made repeatedly by opposition parties.

The National Prosecuting Authority's spokesman, Tlali Tlali, refused to say whether the Scorpions had questioned Mbeki about the deal.

Tlali said: "It is not in the nature of the NPA to give a blow-by-blow account of how we conduct our investigations. This means we cannot say whom we approached on matters that we are investigating."

Presidential spokesman Mukoni Ratshitanga said he was not aware of a Scorpions' request for the president's assistance in the investigation of the 1999 arms deal.

Pressure is mounting on Mbeki to clarify his involvement in the deal following a Mail & Guardian report that arms giant ThyssenKrupp desperately lobbied the government ­ in particular Justice Minister Brigitte Mabandla ­ to head off a German investigation into corruption in the deal.

The newspaper said that Sven Moeller, a lawyer for a local ThyssenKrupp representative *1, had written to Mabandla and the director-general of the justice department, Menzi Simelane, in a bid to prevent the seizure of documents and the interrogation of witnesses in South Africa

Yesterday, the Sunday Times reported that Tokyo Sexwale, a member of the ANC's national executive committee, had called on Mbeki "to take the ANC into his confidence" and explain whether there was substance to the German investigators' implication of him in arms-deal corruption.

Sexwale's call, made at a meeting of the executive committee on Friday, was triggered by the Mail & Guardian report, which alleged that Mbeki, government officials and the ANC had benefited financially from the arms deal.

Ratshitanga refused to comment when asked if Mbeki would heed Sexwale's call.

Patricia de Lille, leader of the Independent Democrats, said the call on Mbeki from within the ANC reeked of hypocrisy.

De Lille was one of the first politicians to blow the whistle on arms-deal corruption.

Yesterday she said: "The time has now finally arrived for the ANC as a whole to come clean on the money it received in return for wasting billions of rands of taxpayers' money on arms.

"The truth will eventually come out, so my advice to the ANC is to take the nation into its confidence and come clean."

The leader of the United Democratic Movement, Bantu Holomisa, said the government should hand over to the Scorpions the so-called "Mabandla dossier", documents that reportedly show that ThyssenKrupp lobbied the South African government to head off the German investigators.

With acknowledgements to Nkululeko Ncana and The Times.