Publication	Mail & Guardian
Date	2012-11-22
Reporter	Tabelo Timse, Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer
Web link	www.mg.co.za

 

As in SA, the ghosts of the arms deal keep returning to haunt politicians in Sweden, with a TV station revealing new details in the arms deal saga.

On Wednesday night Sweden's Channel 4 investigative programme Kalla Fakta (Cold Facts) broadcast a new take on corruption allegations related to the sale of Saab Gripen jet fighters to South Africa in 1999.

The programme focused on the role of Stefan Löfven – a former head of the Swedish industrial union IF Metall, and the current leader of the Social Democratic party leading the polls in the run up to election in 2014.

In 1999 Löfven was the head of Metall's international section and – according to the programme – a good friend of Moses Mayekiso, the former general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa).

The focus of the programme was the odd agreement announced in July 1999 when Numsa and the South African National Civics Organisation (Sanco) announced their joint support for the Saab Gripen bid.

The public support, from what were touted as "two of South Africa's largest labour and community organisations", was crucial at a time when government was considering postponing the jet purchase due to budget constraints.

Mayekiso had by then left Numsa to lead Sanco, though he remained influential within the union. The announcement referred to "reciprocal agreements", by which Saab would support Numsa in establishing an Industrial School modelled on Saab's advanced training facility in Sweden and noted that the initiative was supported by Metall and another big Swedish union.

But rumours that the Saab-Metall initiative was a cover for the payment of dubious sweeteners or commissions were already swirling.

Arms deal activist Terry Crawford-Browne has written: "In December 1998 I was invited by Numsa to participate in a workshop in Johannesburg on the arms deal … Numsa officials then informed me that additional bribes of R30-million were being laundered ... via two Swedish trade unions, ostensibly to fund an industrial training school but, in reality, to bribe South African parliamentarians to support the arms deal."

The allegations were aired by Crawford-Browne and then Pan-Africanist Congress MP Patricia de Lille in late 1999 as part of the initial arms deal dossier – but no real evidence was forthcoming. Now Cold Facts has gone back to old Numsa sources and records to demonstrate that, at the very least, there was something to hide.

The Swedish journalists accessed Numsa central committee minutes that show there was serious concern within the union following the Crawford-Browne revelations.

One extract notes: "The allegations made … around the union receiving kick-backs… should not be ignored ... there is a great need to institute an investigation to clear the organisation."

Numsa's then newly appointed general secretary Silumko Nondwangu and the Numsa Central Committee convened an internal investigation.

"We decided that we would send a delegation to Sweden to investigate the allegations, speak to our Swedish counterparts, speak to anyone else in Sweden who would know exactly about whether Numsa would have been offered a school as an off-set to the arms deal," Nondwangu told Swedish television.

The minutes uncovered by the Swedish investigation are more blunt: "The NOB [National Office Bearers] sensitise the meeting [about] the suggested trip ... The meeting was cautioned by the NOBs that it seems the aim of the trip is to win the hearts and minds of the comrades that will be sent to Sweden … "

In June 2000 Numsa training coordinator Melanie Samson, treasurer Philemon Shiburi and central committee member Petrus Ncgobo arrived in Sweden.

Löfven played the central role in hosting the visit. The day after their arrival they were taken to the Linköping aircraft factory for a meeting with Metall and Saab.

Ngcobo told Swedish journalists the delegation was concerned about a missing page or paragraphs in the purported agreement which had been signed on the union's behalf: "Why is this clause missing? To us it was not as if it was not a mistake."

Shiburi says on camera: "They continued denying that there is a page missing and we left the meeting without getting the final page which we were looking for."

The visitors took an early plane home, but a few weeks later, received confirmation that the missing page really indeed existed. It has been sent to Numsa's leadership, but the text of two paragraphs is blackened out.

Numsa decided to distance itself from any project linked to the arms deal, but continued to seek assistance from Metall for an anti-Aids programme.

Nondwangu told the Mail & Guardian: "During our investigations we could not even make out the agreement supposedly signed by Numsa and the union because there were pages missing and words blocked out. On that basis we could not make out a conclusion.

"We remained suspicious that something could have happened we don't know what but because no one would own up we decided to close the investigations."

Numsa's current deputy general secretary Karl Cloete said the union's leadership elected in 2008 and re-elected in 2012 had no knowledge of any agreement entered into by Numsa.

"When Patrica De Lille made the allegations in Parliament alleging that Numsa was involved in the arms deal we wanted to establish the facts. We can say without fear of contradiction that Numsa did not receive a school nor millions as a spin off from the arms deal. Numsa is on record as saying that we shall avail ourselves in any investigation of the arms deal whether in South African or Sweden."

Cloete added that when his union declined the training school, the Swedes then handed over money and machines to various Further Education and Training colleges, one being Tshwane South College.

SAAB and Svenska Metall deny that there were any irregularities – as does Mayekiso. Metall says they have no record of the agreement. SAAB says it is confidential.

Swedes, like South Africans, still want answers.


Our Coverage

• A rms deal: Conflict of interest twist raises alarm

• Taxpayers in the dark about arms deals

• Arms deal inquiry hits the skids

• The arms deal: An economic dud from the start

More Coverage

• Call to probe Barclays links to arms deal

 With acknowledgement to Tabelo Timse, Sam Sole, Stefaans Brümmer and Mail & Guardian.

You see, Swedes are normally quite honest, but here the factual situation in Sweden got in the way.

Here's how it happened :

“"The [Swedish] government had initially favored acquiring 80 to 100 fighters. This was reduced to between 60 to 80 units last spring. Now it is talking of purchasing 40 to 60 aircraft,” said Staffan Danielsson, a member of Parliament with the ruling Center Party, who sits on the national Parliamentary Defense Committee."

http://www.defensenews.com/article/20121119/DEFREG01/311190008/Sweden-8217-s-Possible-Gripen-Cut-Prompts-Force-Capability-Fears


Saab also originally wanted to sell Gripens to Norway, indeed there was a joint venture involved.

So Saab had tooled up to build literally hundreds of Gripens.

Then its client reduced these to a fraction.

It became desperate.

It would do anything to save itself from fiscal implosion.

Firstly the vulture British Aerospace was sitting on a local pole watching with its normal vile fiscal interest.

It quickly purchased 30% of Saab.

Then Saab and British Aerospace, with the former shielding behind the latter started international marketing campaign based on bribery and corruption to sell Gripens into the second and third worlds.

Hence campaigns in Poland, the Czech Republic, the RSA and various South American countries.

Unfortunately for them they came up against Lockeed Martin with its F16 and the US government investigated.

Fiscal frontman British Aerospace got busted for money laundering through the USA and paid USD400 million in fines for its Al Yamanah deal.

Somehow in the greater plea wheeling department, the UK Serious Fraud Office decided that a bit of fraud of its own was not out of place and entered into a USD30 million deal with BAe on the Tanzanian radar acquisition and at the same time let BAe go off scott-free in the Czech Republic and RSA Saab/BAe Gripen deals.

Sick?

Yes, sick.

But the non-Saab Swedes have also been sickened by their own kind and are not going to let the ghosts of Joe Modise and Richard Charter rest easily.

In the meantime BAe sold its shares back to Saab.

And Saab motors went bankrupt.

The torture never stops, the torture never stops.