Publication	City Press
Date	2011-10-30
Reporter	Adriaan Basson
Web Link	www.news24.com

Johannesburg - Chippy Shaik, the man at the centre of the arms deal, is ­embroiled in another bribery scandal.

This time Shaik has been linked to a R750 000 payment from arms deal beneficiaries BAE Systems and Saab to the supervisor of his fake doctorate, Professor Viktor Verijenko.

Shaik was the defence ­department’s chief of acquisitions during the arms deal.

A forensic report recently ­implicated him in having had a corrupt relationship with ­German shipbuilder Ferrostaal, which received the R12bn tender to provide the navy with three submarines.

In a new book titled The Devil in the Detail, released by arms deal researchers Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren, they reveal that a local company co-owned by BAE and Saab had made an “interest-free” loan to a company of which Verijenko is the sole member.

BAE scored two multibillion-rand contracts from the arms deal. With Saab, BAE provided the air force with 26 Gripen fighter jets at a cost of R30bn, while BAE also received the tender to produce 24 Hawk training planes for R11bn.

In 2007*1 , the Sunday Times exposed Shaik for plagiarising the work of others, including that of Verijenko, to obtain his PhD in mechanical engineering from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in 2003.

Stripped of degree

The Ukranian-born Verijenko was the head of the university’s school of mechanical engineering at the time and Shaik’s ­supervisor for his degree.

In 2008, the university stripped Shaik of his PhD after finding that he had copied the work of five international ­professors published in a book 20 years ago.

The university conducted a forensic investigation into his thesis and found he had ­“plagiarised massively”.
Verijenko resigned and moved to Australia.

Although Holden and Van ­Vuuren don’t directly accuse the arms companies of paying Verijenko to assist Shaik in faking his PhD, the authors consider it “remarkable that of all the millions of South Africans...  to receive a loan on such favourable terms, it was granted to a friend and confidant of the very man who had used his official powers to ensure BAE and Saab won this most lucrative of contracts”.

They call the payment by ­Sanip – the local firm owned by BAE and Saab – to Verijenko’s Veriytech cc “by far the most intriguing” loan made by Sanip.

“Curiously, the loan was 'unsecured, rand-denominated and interest free. There are no fixed repayment terms'.

"In layman’s terms, this meant the loan was granted without Veriytech having to put up any collateral, pay any interest or pay back the loan at regular ­intervals.”

Written off in total

This, the authors suggest, may show that the loan was, after all, not a loan but a payment to Verijenko.

According to Sanip’s financial records, the loan was later ­written off in total.

The authors highlight that the payment to Verijenko’s entity was made at the same time the professor approved the awarding of a PhD to Shaik – which ­plagiarised substantial amounts of his (Verijenko’s) own work.

The authors draw the conclusion that Verijenko must have chosen to ignore the fact that Shaik plagiarised his work.

“This, after all, is what friends do. At roughly the same time Shaik’s thesis was being written, Shaik served as the best man at Verijenko’s wedding.”

When confronted with the ­evidence, Verijenko told the ­authors he did not want to speak to them.

He could not be reached for comment.

Shaik, who will probably be one of the key witnesses before the Seriti Commission of ­Inquiry into the arms deal, said he was in Australia and did not respond to a request for comment.

Related Links

• Arms deal: Zuma, Mbeki set to testify

• Chippy Shaik 'asked for bribe'

• Hawks 'have arms deal bribe'

With acknowledgements to Adriaan Basson, City Press and News24.

*1

Dr Chippy Fake!

Sunday Times
2007-05-19
http://www.stimes.co.za/article.aspx?ID=467427
 

2007-03-28

Findings

I am of the opinion that this is not the own unaided work of the candidate as attested in the declaration.

Either there has been extensive plagiarism of another person's or persons' work, or closer than acceptable collaboration with one or more experts in the field of strength of materials. This other person or persons are almost surely academics steeped deeply in the science of strength of materials as well as advanced higher-order mathematics, especially three-dimensional vector calculus and finite element analysis.

At least three and probably four different writing styles seem to be in evidence throughout the thesis. English UK and English USA spelling alternates through the chapters, as do styles of grammatical and mathematical expression. These probably arise through the contributions of three or more authors, plus the candidate.

The number of spelling and typographical errors (some 100 in number) is shocking and unacceptable for a PhD thesis. Normally, anything more than a handful of such errors would require correction and re-submission.

While lengthy derivations of formulae are provided, indeed often to the detraction of the overall flow and understandability of the thesis, two aspects seem noteworthy, firstly there seems to be no explanation for the choice of numerical parameters in the examples provided and secondly, no explanation of how the numerical solutions were actually determined.

Having only a Bibliography listing all the referenced works as well as all other material of general interest to the subject matter and not separate References, listing only the referenced works, is a flawed style that lends itself to plagiarism. I find this completely unacceptable.

In general, although the subject matter is very advanced and if it were genuine, then definitely of doctoral (indeed post-doctoral) standard, the overall style and layout makes the aim, research methodology and contribution difficult to understand and to assess. The overall thesis appears to be more like a concatenation of two or three journal papers authored over a period of time by a group of professional academic researchers in the field of strength of materials and then given to the candidate to wordprocess (and not very well besides) into a self-standing thesis.

Recommendation

An independent review panel should be established to review the authenticity of this doctoral thesis as the candidate's own unaided work.

Regarding the possibility of plagiarism or collaboration, correlation should be made with the marked references in the Bibliography, in particular the journal papers by Verijenko, Adali and Tabakov. Interviews with these persons should be conducted by the review panel. Other academics and post-graduate students in the relevant specialist research group within the Department of Mechanical Engineering should be interviewed to ascertain their views as well as any relevant facts.

Finally, an oral examination of the candidate should be undertaken wherein it should be established whether the candidate has a true personal grasp of all the subject matter presented as his own unaided work, especially the development of the higher order theory and the advanced mathematics.


R.M. Young  PrEng, MSc(Eng), PhD

2007-03-28

QED ?