THE Constitutional Court has rejected a bid by activist Terry Crawford-Browne to have the findings of the multibillion-rand arms deal set aside.
He had asked for direct access to South Africa’s apex court, but it said in a judgment: “The Constitutional Court has considered this application for direct access.
“It has concluded that the application should be dismissed as it is not in the interests of justice to grant it. There is no order as to the costs.”
It is effectively the end of the road for Crawford-Browne, a long-time campaigner against the deal. The Seriti Commission into alleged corruption in the arms procurement deal found no wrongdoing after Crawford-Browne could not produce evidence, nor could other anti-deal campaigners such as Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille, who first blew the whistle.
After a long and arduous battle over many years, the Constitutional Court was Crawford-Browne’s last legal option.
Yesterday, he said it was “highly regrettable” the court dismissed his application. But he says he is not done yet.
“In anticipation that the Constitutional Court would attempt to duck the political hot potato of the arms deal scandal, I have already engaged a highly reputed firm of foreign lawyers, who specialise in international corruption and fraud, and who are looking at alternative resolutions to this saga. Thus, whilst local remedies may have been exhausted by the Constitutional Court’s decision, the arms deal saga continues.”
But Communications Minister Faith Muthambi said: “The people of South Africa can now come to terms with the truth with the court’s verdict and appreciate that their government and its intentions of procuring strategic arms has always been transparently conducted, and its commitment to promoting a peaceful, united and stable continent and a better world is a reality.”
Muthambi said South Africa was recognised and “highly respected” as a peace broker by the international community. She said the country’s defence force made a big contribution to the African Union peacekeeping missions using the procured arms.
Crawford-Browne filed his application in July and requested the court to instruct Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan to recover the estimated R70 billion he argued was irrationally and fraudulently spent on the arms deal.
Crawford-Browne believed “evidence” against British Aerospace, the German Submarine Consortium and German Frigate Consortium had been left lying around in two shipping containers at the Hawks’s premises in Pretoria.
He had argued that examination of other evidence was deliberately blocked by Judge Willie Seriti, chair of the commission.
President Jacob Zuma released the findings of the commission earlier this year, which found no wrongdoing. The commission was instructed to look at key points in the Strategic Defence Procurement Package (SDPP), the rationale for the deal, whether the equipment was used and whether the anticipated jobs and offsets materialised, among other things.
The commission approved the rationale for the procurement. It concluded that the need to acquire some of the equipment was long overdue.
Parliament was promised that it would result in R110bn in business offsets and 65 000 jobs when the deal was made more than 15 years ago.
Crawford-Browne said the Constitutional Court decision was regrettable because of the signals it sent to the international community at a time “South Africa faces investment downgrading to junk status”. He said the arms deal was an early manifestation of what was now described as “state capture”.
“The people of South Africa have been the victims of massive fraud perpetrated by European arms companies, banks and governments, albeit with collusion by our government. (This) is evident from the