The president of the republic, Thabo Mbeki, has over the years gone out of his way to defend South Africa's corrupt multibillion-rand arms deal.

Every time they were questioned about the deal, he and his lieutenants insisted that the primary portion of the deal was clean and that corruption, if any, would have occurred at the secondary stage where contracts for fittings were being allocated.

In 2001, in his only-ever impromptu television address, Mbeki angrily defended the integrity of the deal and lambasted those who were alleging that it was tainted. He later famously used his Internet column to label those who were seeking the truth of being "fishers of corrupt men".

Whenever questioned inside and outside parliament about what had transpired in secret meetings he had held with arms dealers during the bidding process, the best he could muster was that he could not even recall those meetings taking place.

Today we reveal why Mbeki was so angry, afraid, evasive and frustrated by the constant pursuit of the truth by better men: his hands were dirty.

According to a secret report of an investigation into the arms deal, Mbeki was paid R30-million, some of which was distributed to the ANC and its then deputy president, Jacob Zuma.

For this relatively paltry sum, Mbeki had vital technical reports ignored, resulting in South Africa spending billions on effectively useless submarines, leaving the country's coastline unprotected. Now, it appears that the government is getting ready to embark on another multibillion-rand arms procurement programme, to buy the type of equipment we should have bought in the first place.

Mbeki also ignored reports that said South Africa could not afford the deal and should rather use the money for social services. He fed the greed of our power elite, and sacrificed the interests of the people of South Africa who trusted him to lead them to a better life.

Now the thieves have fallen out and again South Africa suffers. The political battle between Zuma and Mbeki, which has some of its roots in this filthy deal, threatens our democracy. It has led to attacks on the constitution and the justice system and brought to power an unruly mob that has shown little respect for the wishes of South Africans or the rule of law.

There is a way out of this dangerous morass into which the ANC and the Mbeki government have led us: full disclosure of all corruption in the arms deal.

The first prize would be for this to happen through criminal prosecution, but the ANC's willingness to sacrifice the rule of law and to damage the justice system ­ by closing down the Scorpions, for example ­ to defend its corrupt leaders makes this unlikely.

The next best thing is an independent judicial inquiry. Such an inquiry must be tasked with finding the whole truth and nothing but. It must be well resourced, have the necessary legal authority and be able to offer amnesty to those who are willing to come forward to confess. It might be an unpalatable idea, but the truth, in this case, may be worth the painful price.

What has been revealed today deals only with the purchase of submarines. Suspicious deals were also done for ships and fighter planes, among other weapon systems. And South Africa is getting ready to spend billions of rands more on infrastructure programmes like the Gautrain, the retooling of Transnet and the building of power stations.

To avoid being cheated by dodgy foreign corporations and their collaborators in government and in SA business, we need to learn lessons from this corrupt arms deal. And those who benefited from the corruption must be made to return their ill-gotten gains. Those who do not come forward with the truth must be prosecuted and jailed.

And Mbeki, who cynically led this country into a debt he knew we could not afford and precipitated the political strife that engulfs us, must be removed from office immediately.

That is one thing those members of the ANC who were not part of this disgraceful affair can do to begin to salvage the good republic we built in 1994. The other would be to ensure that Mbeki's partner in crime, Zuma, is not allowed near the highest office in the land until he has his day in court. His trial must be allowed to go ahead, without the judiciary and the rest of the country being intimidated by howling mobs, urged on by ANC leaders.

The citizens of our republic deserve better.

With acknowledgements to Sunday Times.