Johannesburg - Former President Thabo Mbeki, the man who was in overall charge of the arms deal, favoured arms merchants known for their tendency to pay bribes and then agreed to pay inflated prices for equipment that the military simply did not want.

Damning documents obtained by The Citizen last week show that Mbeki ignored his own experts who had ruled that a rival Spanish warship offered better military value than the exorbitantly expensive German product the Navy eventually bought.

The contract should therefore have been awarded to the Spanish who convincingly won the frigate contract using the procurement formula the Department of Defence had agreed upon.

Mbeki has never launched any action for defamation against the media who published claims that he pocketed a $20 million bribe from the German frigate consortium. These claims were first made in a report compiled by US- based risk-analysis company Kroll *1.

Kroll had obtained this information from a senior National Intelligence Agency official, who subsequently died in a car crash.

The documents may well open the way for Spanish company Bazan to launch legal action against the state. However, The Citizen has not been able to contact Bazan’s representatives.

By awarding the contract to the Germans, Mbeki ignored the Constitution, which lays down that procurement must be done in a way that is fair, transparent and cost-effective.

Terry Crawford-Browne, the SA president of Economists Allied for Arms Reduction, told The Citizen that he was studying the documents.

Crawford-Browne said: “It’s clear that throughout the deal we favoured people who were known to pay bribes. What people must realise is that prices are inflated in order to cover the costs of bribes. The taxpayer pays for corruption, not the arms merchant.”

Former chairman of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Gavin Woods, said that while serving as chair of Scopa he had seen clear evidence that the arms dealers who had won contracts as part of the controversial arms deal had inexplicably inflated their prices when supplying equipment to the SANDF.

Woods said: “The government has thus far tried its best to whitewash the arms deal, but I don’t believe they have succeeded. These latest documents simply prove serious irregularities in yet another aspect of the arms deal.”

Woods resigned as chair of Scopa after the ANC used its parliamentary majority to prevent the Heath Special Investigating Unit from being part of the arms deal probe.

The unit, chaired by Judge Willem Heath, was the sole law enforcement body that had the legal powers to set aside the arms deal contracts that had already been signed.

During the acquisition process for the jet fighters and trainers for the South African Air Force, the recommendations of the SAAF were ignored and former Defence Minister Joe Modise forced the SAAF to buy BAe jet trainers rather than the cheaper Italian aircraft the SAAF actually wanted.

Modise also forced the SAAF to buy Gripen fighters despite the fact that they had no need for them. The existing Cheetah C fighters had just been taken into service and were scheduled to remain in use for at least another decade.

These aircraft have now all been effectively grounded as the SAAF, crippled by the acquisition costs of the Gripen and Hawk, cannot afford to operate their only supersonic fighter jet. Effectively, South Africa has no air force at present.

Fana Hlongwane was, at the time of the Hawk and Gripen deals, Modise’s special advisor and close personal friend. Hlongwane was the subject of a series of search-and-seizure raids earlier this month when the Scorpions raided his homes and offices seeking evidence of arms deal bribery.

Hlongwane owns a fleet of luxury cars and several mansions, all purchased after BAe won the Hawk and Gripen contracts.

The documents obtained by The Citizen show that the German warships offered slightly better military performance than the much cheaper Spanish ship, which was ruled to have “the best mobility, operability, growth potential, layout, accommodation and habitability features”.

In June 2008 an SA Navy legal services report was leaked to the media showing that the navy was not able to operate the exorbitantly expensive German frigates because of financial constraints.

Andrew Feinstein, the ANC representative on Scopa, was demoted by his party after backing Woods and demanding that the Heath Unit probe the deal.

Feinstein said: “It seemed to me that we favoured those who were prepared to pay the biggest bribes, regardless of the real value of the equipment.”

With acknowledgements to Paul Kirk and The Citizen.