Cape Town – Former President Thabo Mbeki on Monday lashed out at detractors of the Seriti Commission of Inquiry into the Arms Deal report which found no proof of wrongdoing in government’s controversial defence procurement package.
Commenting on the report on his Facebook page, Mbeki said the report was not a whitewash and, in fact, a vindication of a joint probe by the auditor-general, public protector and national prosecuting authority which he ordered in 2001, which also found no proof of fraud or corruption.
“Even then, some in our country denounced the finding of the JIT [joint investigation team] as a ‘cover-up’ in exactly the same way as has now happened with regard to the Judicial Commission,” Mbeki said.
“This confirms that there are some in our country who are determined to ensure that at all costs, the perception is sustained among our people and the peoples of the world that the Government President Nelson Mandela led was corrupt.”
The media was not spared Mbeki’s criticism.
“Most unfortunately, again many in our media seem to have maintained their stance in this regard and have joined the babel of tongues which now seek to discredit and delegitimise both the Judicial Commission of Inquiry and its Findings and Conclusions, thus to con?rm the resort to lies and deliberate fabrications as a legitimate instrument in our public discourse,” he said.
“In this regard, these people seem to have made the ?rm commitment that they will never allow the truth or anything else to defeat their strategic objective of successfully painting our then Government as corrupt, basing themselves on the practice of repeating this allegation a million times, while producing not even a single fact to substantiate their allegation.”
During Mbeki’s tenure as President, he had consistently refused to establish a judicial commission of inquiry into the SDPP (Strategic Defence Procurement Package), insisting a joint investigation team had already cleared the government of wrongdoing.
African News Agency
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