Donwald Pressly
Former president Thabo Mbeki was given the opportunity to revise the draft report of the triple inquiry into South Africa’s R70 billion arms deal, while his brother, Moeletsi Mbeki, derived benefits from a deal involving a subcontract to provide gearboxes for the SA Navy’s corvette programme.
This emerges in The Devil in the Detail, Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren’s recently published book on the deal, which was signed off by the government in the late 1990s. The book tells of how the arms deal emerged “out of the criminal networks of both the old SA Defence Force and the ANC’s security apparatus, raising questions as to whether South Africa’s remarkable transition was not oiled, at key points, by criminal intent and collusion”.
Speaking at the Cape Town Press Club recently, Holden said it was unclear whether the former president’s brother knew of the deal at the time but he clearly had benefited from it.
“What is certain is that he had shares in the company and he benefited from the (corvette gearbox) decision,” he said.
Moeletsi Mbeki and former Industrial Development Corporation chief executive Diliza Mji acquired a 25 percent stake via Dynamic Global Defence Technologies in the British firm, Vickers OMC. Former DA MP Raenette Taljaard reported in 2002 that this “adds fuel to the fire of conflicts of interest”.
Taljaard, now a politics lecturer and Independent Electoral Commission member, at the time reported that Mji and Moeletsi Mbeki stood “to benefit handsomely from the corvette gearbox deal where the other arms kingmaker, Chippy Shaik, played an instrumental role in dropping Maag for Vickers OMC-linked Renk”.
A letter published in Holden and Van Vuuren’s book notes that Thabo Mbeki, who became president in 1999, received a letter from then auditor-general Shauket Fakie on October 4, 2001. This outlined the legal basis that would allow him, incumbent finance minister Trevor Manuel and “a responsible minister” to edit the outcome of Fakie’s report into the arms deal “in the national interest”, Van Vuuren reported.
Holden said Manuel’s role in the arms deal was “opaque”. He had clearly opposed it “in the initial phase”, but had not later voiced this opposition, probably with an eye on maintaining his political career.
Van Vuuren said a handwritten note “in an unknown script” indicated that extensive feedback was given by cabinet subcommittee members overseeing the arms deal regarding the draft version of the joint probe report – by Fakie, the public protector and the national director of public prosecutions.
Van Vuuren, the head of the Institute of Security Studies, reported that part of the handwritten note was of particular interest, including that the now-famous conclusion – that no wrongdoing was found in the arms deal – emanated from these feedback sessions.
Fakie wrote: “It would be appreciated if you could provide me with any comments/inputs you may have on the content of the proposed report by no later than October 12 2001.
“Because of the tight deadlines, we would assume that you have no further comments/inputs, if we do not receive a response by the stipulated date.”
Holden was concerned that the report by the new commission of inquiry appointed by President Jacob Zuma also needed to be delivered to the president before made public.