Publication	INLSA
Date	2011-11-04
Web Link	www.iol.co.za

 

Minister of Defence and Military Veterans Lindiwe Sisulu

Defence and Military Veterans Minister Lindiwe Sisulu has again defended her decision to appoint convicted fraudster Tony Yengeni to the SA Defence Review Committee – a body that will mould defence policy and requirements for the foreseeable future.

Yengeni’s appointment to the committee drew immediate criticism because of his fraud conviction for lying to Parliament about a discount he received on a luxury 4x4 from one of the successful arms deal bidders while he was chairman of the National Assembly’s standing committee on defence.

It also emerged last year that he held directorships in six companies in contravention of the Companies Act, which prohibits anyone jailed for theft, fraud, forgery or perjury from being a company director, unless the High Court sets aside the disqualification.

But Sisulu denied in a parliamentary reply yesterday to a question from the DA’s David Maynier that Yengeni had been convicted “for any offence relating to any arms acquisition or the so-called ‘arms deal’”, as Maynier had suggested.

Yengeni had instead been “convicted for not disclosing certain information to Parliament”.

Sisulu said the review committee “is not a company so the Companies Act does not apply”.

As she had at the time of his appointment to the committee in August, the minister said she had chosen him “because of his experience in defence matters”.

She said there was no law that disqualified Yengeni “from serving his country as he does now” on the committee.

He had been convicted and paid his penalty by serving a prison sentence and should “be allowed to carry on with his life and be able to serve his country in any capacity”.

She said Yengeni had disclosed the information relating to his conviction and contravention of the Companies Act, but she had in any case been aware of it as it was in the public domain.

A defence review traditionally considers possible future threats to a country’s national security then maps out its defence requirements, including the composition of its defence force.

When the members of the committee were announced, Maynier suggested that Yengeni’s “toxic” presence could undermine the review process.

He said Yengeni did not appear to share the “core values” of the defence force, which included integrity and honesty.

But former defence minister Roelf Meyer, the committee chairman, said at the time he had found Yengeni to be an “extremely valuable contributor to the team” thus far.

With acknowledgements to INLSA.

That's the problem with plea bargains.

Yengeni was up to his eyebrows in the Arms Deal and received not one discounted Merc from Mickey Woerfel of DASA.

The reason was that like a host of others such as Chief of the SANDF Gen Sipiwe Nyanda, CEO of Armscor Llew Swan and around 30 others, had to pave the way for the Arms Deal to be transmogrified for a corvette deal with Bazan of Spain in mid-1995 to a multi-faceted five-way SDP in 1998.

After the British coined the package deal in 1995 after the Cabinet led by Nelson Mandela declined to sign the corvette deal, the DoD opened up the deal to all, actually not the deal, but the deals. Instead of a package of equipment, it became individual packages per equipment type with each pakager consisting of the equipment itself, the DIP, the NIP and the financing terms.

But prior to that, bidding countries thought that they had a shot at the entire package or packages.

So in Germany, who had already been exclude at No. 5 for the corvette deal and there was no submarine requirement until the Brits threw in their used Upholders, started hunting in their traditional wolf pack called the German Strategic Alliance.

The German Strategic Alliance consisted of all the major companies bidding for main and secondary equipment, from the German Frigate Consortium consisting of Thyssen TRT, Blohm+Voss, and HDW to the German Submarine Consortium consisting of Ferrostaal and HDW, to EADS offering the ALPHA 2000 jet fighter and fast jet trainer, to Eurocopter, to MTU (part owned by BMW).

EADS was part owned by DACA and DACA owned Mercedes Benz and part of Chrysler.

So all the German wolves threw in their bit and Mickey Woerfel of DACA was tasked to identify the recipients of over 34 Mercedes Benz and Chrysler motor cars.

Most people don't know that Jayzed got a nice Chrysler via Schabir Shaik and Durban South Motors.

Mbeki got the most top of the range (600 series) presidential armoured Merc which he hurriedly returned when the heat got hot. But he used it for several months.

But the NPA in its infinite puerility, struck a plea bargain with Yengeni whereby he pleaded guilty to defrauding Parliament by misleading them about the discount on his one Merc as well as scratching it to reduce its visible value, instead of the full monty of curroption charges which probably would have sent him to the pen for 10, maybe 15 years.

Yengeni was after all, Chairman of both the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee on Defence and the lower level defence committee.

He was instrumental in the architecture and approval of the Arms Deal.

When Christoph Hoenings was formally advised by Armscor in 1995 that the GFC was out of the running to supply the corvettes, he stomped his little foot and went running to the political heavy batters, starting with Yengeni.

And who won the corvette and submarine deals in the end - after being No. 5 in the corvette deal and there being no submarine deal initially. Even with the submarine deal, until two weeks before selection, the GSC were coming 4 out of 4. That was until the biggest feint and fraud of the Arms Deal, Ferrostaal's NIP.

BTW, who was the German Strategic Alliance's biggest deal wheeler and paymaster?

That was former RSA President F.W. de Klerk's new wife's former husband.

Tony Georgadis.

When the Arms Deal was being stitched together between 1995 and 1998, F.W. de Klerk was Deputy President of the GNU. He then had close ties with Georgadis, so close indeed that he had nookie with his wife.

Georgadis reaped many hundreds of millions of Rands (1999 value) from the successful corvette and submarine deals with Thyssen and Ferrostaal.

Of this he was paymaster to some hundreds of millions of Rands (1999 value) to the local trough feeders such as Modise, Chippy Shaik, etc.

I am told of these millions of Rands in bribes and payoffs, the ANC Womens League received some R72 million.

Who headed the ANC Womens League at that time?

Winnie Mandela.

Wife of the President of the ANC.

There was a meeting at Mykonos amongst the recipients of inter alia Georgadis's bribes in the early part of this decade Tony Yengeni was a main player. Winnie was there..

Yengeni told the delegates that the monies received were rightly theirs and no ways would it be paid back.

Yet the NPA sent Yengeni to the Sanatorium at  Paarl prison where he had big screen TV, computer, etc. and was allowed out at night and in the weekends for conjugal visits to his wife and girlfriends.

This plea bargain was surely the fruit of the lively minds of Bulelani Ngcuka and Leonard McCarthy.

Taken forward by a reluctant Gerda Ferreira.

Now Yengeni is again in a position to help decide the next round of equipment on which the DoD and SANDF will waste our hard earned tax.

Skermunkels.