what do you expect from the natives

8/18/2019 What Do You Expect From the Natives

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These Letters were respectively entitled “The truth stands in the way of the arms accusers” and

“Our country needs facts, not groundless allegations”.

We wil post these articles on this Facebook page and the TMF website because of their

continuing relevance to what appears to be new but is in fact the old practice of denouncing the

truth without presenting any facts to substantiate such denunciation, as is now happening with

regard to the findings of the Judicial Commission.

This continuing practice illustrates in a concrete manner the pernicious and persistent habit of the

resort to lies and fabrications in the conduct of public affairs in our country, which the articles we

have previously posted on this page have sought to demonstrate and discourage.

Let me now present some truths relating to the Seriti/Musi Judicial Commission. I will number

these to facilitate their understanding, given the unavoidable length of this article.

1. The Judicial Commission was appointed to investigate various matters relating to the Strategic

Defence Procurement Packages (SDPP) and nothing else.

2. Through the SDPP our Government signed contracts with a number of European companies

to procure corvettes, submarines and helicopters for the SA Navy, and fighter planes, fighter

trainers and helicopters for SA Air Force.

3. These have been identified as the Primary Contracts, being the only contracts our Government

signed with the SDPP supplier companies. These are the contracts which the Judicial

Commission had to examine.

4. There were also Secondary Contracts. These were contracts entered into by the Primary

Contracting companies with those companies they sub-contracted to provide elements of the

weapons systems they, the Primary Contractors, were obliged to supply to our Government. Our

Government was not involved in any way with these sub-contracts, these being exclusively a

matter for the companies concerned. Accordingly the Judicial Commission, as well, had neither

the task, the need and reason nor the legal possibility to investigate these sub-contracts, and

therefore did not investigate these.

5. The body which approved the weapons purchases, and therefore the Primary Contracts, was

the National Cabinet on the basis of recommendations it received from a Cabinet Sub-Committee

it had constituted, known as the Inter Ministerial Committee (IMC). I chaired the IMC from when I

was Deputy President. It also included the then Ministers of Defence, Trade and Industry,

Finance and Public Enterprises.

6. The IMC itself received and examined recommendations from the Sub-Committees of Officials

which processes the detailed matters relating to the SDPP. These Sub-Committees reported only

to the IMC and therefore never presented any report or proposal directly to the National Cabinet.

7. Commenting on the procedures that were followed with regard to the SDPP, and acting on

behalf of the IMC, I made the submission to the Judicial Commission that if any corruption had

occurred which informed the decisions on the SDPP, the blame would lie first and foremost with


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the IMC and secondly with the National Cabinet, and only these two bodies. This is for the simple

reason that it was only at these two levels that the effective decisions concerning the SDPP were

taken, with the proposals emanating from the Sub-Committees of Officials serving merely as

recommendations to the IMC.

8. Accordingly, the allegation that has been made that the findings of the Judicial Commission

constitute a “cover-up” means that it would be the then Members of the IMC and the National

Cabinet who are thus being protected, including those who are unfortunately no longer with us,

these being the late President Mandela and Ministers Joe Modise and Stella Sigcau.

9. It was in this regard, concerning the IMC, the National Cabinet and the Primary Contracts, that

the Judicial Commission has said that absolutely nobody presented any evidence of corruption to

it and that its own investigations have not unearthed any such corruption. (Indeed no other

evidence of corruption, even outside these parameters, was presented to the Commission.)

10. The Judicial Commission invited many people to make presentations to it consistent with its

mandate, including those called “whistle-blowers”, who had made strenuous efforts over many

years to sustain the accusation which enjoyed pride of place in our media, that serious and

extensive corruption had attended the conclusion of the SDPP.

11. Some of these “whistle-blowers” did indeed make written and oral presentations to the

Judicial Commission. They were also subjected to cross examination. These included Ms Patricia

de Lille, Mr Richard Young, Ms Raenette Taljaard, Mr Gavin Woods, Mr Terry Crawford-Browne

and Mr David Maynier.

12. Similarly the Members of the IMC who are still alive, myself included, with the exception of

Minister Jeff Radebe who was not called, also made written and oral presentations to the

Commission and were subjected to sustained cross examination.

13. The relevant Government Departments, including Defence, Trade and Industry and Finance,

also made written and oral submissions, and were similarly subjected to cross examination.

14. The Police Officers who had investigated the allegations of fraud and corruption concerning

the SDPP, as part of both the Scorpions and the Hawks, also made their written and oral

presentations and were also subjected to cross examination.

15. One of the consultants of one of the Primary Contracting Companies also made a written and

oral submission and was also subjected to cross examination.

16. And so did the Companies which it was alleged were tainted with corruption, except one,

make their own written and oral submissions and subjected themselves to cross examination.

17. Unfortunately three of the “whistle-blowers” refused to appear before the Commission to

submit whatever information they had which could have assisted the Commission. These were

Messrs Andrew Feinstein, Paul Holden and Hennie van Vuuren.


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18. Fortunately the Commission honoured its commitment to keep its hearings public, thus to

ensure the greatest possible transparency. Accordingly the public was free to attend these

hearings.

19. In addition the Commission transcribed the oral submissions and cross examinations and

posted these on its website. These can be accessed at the websitewww.armscomm.org.za

20. I urge our readers to take the trouble to read these transcripts. Among others, they convey

the necessary information concerning the corruption accusations of the “whistle-blowers” as well

as the detail of how these were discussed at the Commission. In this regard we would like to

draw the attention of our readers to the article we posted earlier this year, written by Mukoni

Ratshitanga, concerning the remarks that were made about the Judicial Commission Report by

one of the “whistle-blowers”, Mr David Maynier of the DA.

21. The transcripts will show that the corruption allegations which the “whistle-blowers”

propagated for more than a decade were discussed in detail, exactly to establish the truth or

otherwise of these allegations. The readers will establish this for themselves, based on the very

words of the “whistle-blowers” themselves, that none of them provided any concrete facts of any

kind to substantiate the allegations of corruption they had made!

22. In this context you, our readers, will also learn about the work done by the Scorpions and the

Hawks to investigate the alleged corruption concerning the SDPP, and their findings in this

regard.

23. The “whistle-blowers” and others who have denounced the Judicial Commission and its

findings have made a strident song and dance about the fact that Messrs Tony Yengeni and

Shabir Shaik were found guilty by our courts on charges which the “whistle-blowers” and their

friends allege concerned the SDPP, or what they call “the arms deal”.

24. What is the truth about these two matters?

25. Mr Yengeni had absolutely nothing to do with the SDPP and played no role of any kind in this

matter. He was convicted by our courts in connection with problems which arose between him

and the National Assembly concerning the reporting of assets. Mr Yengeni had received a

discount for a new vehicle he had purchased. He tried to hide this fact from Parliament and thus

violated the Code of Ethics which binds Members of Parliament. None of this had anything to do

with the SDPP. The “whistle-blowers” try desperately to bring in the SDPP in this context because

they allege that the company which sold Mr Yengeni the vehicle had something to do with one or

another of the Primary Contracting Companies. The IMC and the Officials never dealt with this

company and had no knowledge of its involvement in any of the Primary Contracts. Indeed,

throughout the Yengeni court case, no reference whatsoever was made to the SDPP since his

case had no relationship with the SDPP.

26. Mr Shaik was convicted on the basis of evidence presented about actions in which he had

been engaged concerning the French company, Thales, which was a sub-contractor to the

German Frigate Consortium, the entity with which our Government entered into an agreement as

http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.armscomm.org.za%2F&h=_AQFT2yf_AQFkR5jmRcUZOh8ZFpJMl5eWl7cxVeuTzxEdwg&enc=AZOXHmVSLdZJ6pPLozuIU36qabOTAi3NR1dWYK8O2-sFRSf1yfLgStBnvASEWJQp0_OjH816CWI6eOhSE93WzqtWmQqBldEzjC9AMsN0opAk6hH4QolCn2FiF4jdDg-TRPhZw4yMBjNhJBFj3-qrpEbUsn7QPQvpS1wl56ZhXViLUhivkBjbbTkOBGQzMCS8dfmWeG1AuRSEPxazHysLVqiI&s=1http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.armscomm.org.za%2F&h=_AQFT2yf_AQFkR5jmRcUZOh8ZFpJMl5eWl7cxVeuTzxEdwg&enc=AZOXHmVSLdZJ6pPLozuIU36qabOTAi3NR1dWYK8O2-sFRSf1yfLgStBnvASEWJQp0_OjH816CWI6eOhSE93WzqtWmQqBldEzjC9AMsN0opAk6hH4QolCn2FiF4jdDg-TRPhZw4yMBjNhJBFj3-qrpEbUsn7QPQvpS1wl56ZhXViLUhivkBjbbTkOBGQzMCS8dfmWeG1AuRSEPxazHysLVqiI&s=1


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a Primary Contracting Company. Whatever Mr Shaik and Thales did had absolutely no

relationship with and had no impact of any kind on the processing, the negotiation and conclusion

of the SDPP, the matter which the Judicial Commission had to investigate.

27. Accordingly it is merely to clutch at straws, and an act of great desperation, to suggest that

the charges preferred severally against Messrs Yengeni and Shaik and their convictions in this

regard had anything whatsoever to do with the processing, negotiation and conclusion of the

SDPP and were therefore manifestations of corrupt practice with regard to the SDPP. They were

therefore completely outside the scope of the mandate of the Judicial Commission as they had

absolutely nothing to do with the alleged corruption of the SDPP process and therefore such

corruption as would attach to the IMC and the National Cabinet as indicated under Paragraphs 7

and 8 above.

28. The “whistle-blowers” and their supporters have also made a similar song and dance about a

Confidential but leaked ‘Debevoise & Plimpton Report’ (D&P Report) which was commissioned

by MAN Ferrostaal, the lead company in the German Submarine Consortium, the Primary

Contractor which signed an agreement with our Government to supply the required submarines.

This Report suggested that Ferrostaal might have paid bribes to secure the contract to supply the

submarines. The Judicial Commission prohibited the submission of this Report arguing that

established law in our country prohibited such submission unless the owner of this ‘Confidential’

Report, Ferrostaal, specifically agreed to lift the ‘Confidential’ restriction of access to the Report.

The “whistle-blowers” have used the ruling of the Commission in this regard as argument that the

Commission took this decision to “cover-up” for the unnamed people who might have been bribed

as suggested by the Debevoise & Plimpton Report. Thus, contrary to the established legal

principle that all institutions in our country, including Judicial Commissions, have to respect the

rule of law, the “whistle-blowers” insisted then, as they continue to do, that the Judicial

Commission should have allowed the D&P Report to be presented despite the fact that this would

have been illegal. The Commission flatly refused to break the law in this regard, after having

failed to persuade Ferrostaal to agree to lift the ‘Confidential’ restriction, as the law prescribed.

29. Contrary to the wrong view of the “whistle-blowers” that all this meant that the Commission

would not consider the leaked D&P Report, which the Commission had in its possession, the

Commission did indeed study the Report and found no evidence in it pointing to anybody having

engaged in corrupt practice relating to the acquisition of the submarines.

30. In addition to this, the Judicial Commission established that the German Prosecuting

Authorities had investigated the corruption allegations relating to Ferrostaal, which investigations

were started by the Düsseldorf Prosecutor’s Office. This Office then referred further

investigations to the Bochum Prosecutor’s Office (Staatsanwaltschaft Bochum). Having carried

out these investigations, the Bochum Prosecutor’s Office communicated to the Düsseldorf

Prosecutor’s Office and said:

31. “As regards the background assumed by the (Düsseldorf) author of the memo (filed as) folio

7 et seq. of the files (bribery of foreign officials) it is to be noted that no specific or substantial

evidence whatsoever exists that would corroborate that assumption.”


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32. On February 5, 2008 the Bochum Prosecutor’s Office sent a communication to Dr Alfred

Dierlamm, attorney for MAN Ferrostaal, and said: “I have withdrawn the prosecution of your client

in accordance with Section 170 paragraph 2 of the StPO, German Code of Criminal Procedure,

(Strafprozessordnung).”

33. Consistent with their determination to hide the truth and therefore give themselves the

possibility to continue propagating fabrications, the “whistle-blowers” and their supporters make

no reference whatsoever to these defining positions taken by the German Prosecuting

Authorities!

34. The “whistle-blowers” also argue that it was wrong for the Commission to insist that all

witnesses who allege corruption should speak only about matters of which they had personal

knowledge, insisting that this amounted to a determined attempt to suppress the truth, and thus

protect those who had engaged in corrupt practice.

35. This is a very strange argument. I say this because, quite correctly, the Commission insisted

that all witnesses should speak about matters of which they had personal knowledge concerning

corruption. This was because the Commission did not want anybody to appear before it merely to

communicate rumours, gossip and unsubstantiated allegations – thus saying, no to the rumour-

mongers!

36. It is very instructive that the “whistle-blowers”, especially the ‘no-show’ trio of Messrs

Feinstein, Holden and van Vuuren, continue to insist that, among others, they would have

considered the Commission as legitimate if it had given them the space to appear before it to

communicate rumours, gossip and unsubstantiated allegations. Obviously no serious Judicial

Commission could ever derive its legitimacy from serving as a repository of rumours, gossip and

unsubstantiated allegations!

37. In this regard I have taken note of the fact that the ‘no-show trio’ has publicly stated that it is

seeking legal advice as to the legality of the Commission’s conduct and the viability of a legal

review to have the Commission Report set aside.

38. This ‘trio’ will do a great service to the Nation if it does indeed approach our courts to apply

for the legal review it has threatened. Thus would the Nation and all of us have the possibility to

hear the supposedly explosive information the ‘trio’ has, which, for whatever reason, it declined to

present to the Judicial Commission. Thus it may very well be that the information the ‘trio’ would

present in court would result in the prosecution of those who were involved in the SDPP process

who have for more than a decade escaped criminal prosecution for their alleged involvement in

corrupt practice.

39. When the controversy about the Defence Procurement erupted in our country, a decade-and-

a-half ago, with a cacophony of very loud voices alleging that extensive corruption had attended

the SDPP process, it was natural that the countries of domicile of the Primary Contracting

Companies would carry out their own investigations to establish the truth about the serious

allegations which emanated from our country. In this context, many in our country claimed that

the foreign jurisdictions concerned had indeed established that the alleged corruption had


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occurred. It was therefore absolutely necessary that the Judicial Commission should contact

these foreign jurisdictions to access the information the Commission sought to enable it properly

to discharge its mandate.

40. In this regard the Commission Report states that accordingly the Commission paid the

required visits to the US, the UK, Sweden, Germany, France, Switzerland and Lichtenstein. The

“whistle-blowers” had argued that it was exactly the authorities in these jurisdictions which would

tell us the truth about the corruption which allegedly attended the SDPP.

41. The end result of the extensive work of the Commission at the international level was that not

even one of these foreign jurisdictions provided the Commission with any information which

confirmed that any of the Primary Contracting Companies and the South Africans involved in the

SDPP, including the IMC and the National Cabinet, had been involved in any corrupt practice.

42. In this context, I must also mention that not even one of the losing bidders with regard to the

Primary Contracts, which, as we have said, are the contracts in which our Government was

involved, approached any court, both here at home and anywhere else in the world, to challenge

the decisions our Government took when it chose the Preferred Bidders who were awarded the

contracts contained in the SDPP.

43. For many years while I served as President of the Republic, some in our country made the

call with great insistence that I should appoint a Judicial Commission of Inquiry to investigate

what was and has been called, using insulting and pejorative language, “the arms deal”.

44. Consistently I refused to accede to this demand. At all times I argued that there had been no

“deal” concerning the SDPP. Further, I insisted that I would appoint such a Commission even if

one single new fact about corrupt practice was provided by anybody, beyond the facts which had

been considered by the JIT made up of the Auditor General, the NPA and the Public Protector as

mentioned above. No such facts were presented to me, even as these might have been only

prima facie evidence of what might have gone wrong. Accordingly I refused to appoint a Judicial

Commission, given that I knew of no objective basis to justify the appointment of such a costly

Commission, taking into account the thoroughgoing investigation which had been conducted by

the JIT.

45. However, as was his right, President Jacob Zuma decided to accede to this public demand,

and the attendant judicial process in this regard, and therefore appointed the Judicial

Commission whose Report is now in the public domain. Happily, the Judicial Commission has

now provided the Nation with valuable information which might otherwise not have been

available. Its detailed three-volume Report and the transcripts posted on its website provide a

firm basis for everybody concerned properly to understand the many matters relating to the

SDPP, and to engage in an informed discussion by any of those who want to pursue the objective

to bring to book whoever they believe was involved in corrupt practice relating to the SDPP.

As I have said, and is generally known, I served as Chairperson of the Inter Ministerial

Committee (IMC) which oversaw the process leading to the conclusion of the SDPP.


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In this context, given my personal knowledge about how this process worked, I was very

confident that the decisions the IMC conveyed to the National Cabinet were not taken on the

basis of any corrupt intervention. For this to have happened would have required the

establishment of a conspiratorial network involving very many people, including many Officials

and all the Members of the National Cabinet who served on the IMC.

Indeed as soon as various companies responded to the initial Request for Offers which started

the bidding process, I took the decision that I should not meet and did not meet any of these

companies, even if they sought to engage our Government on matters about their possible

investment in our economy, not related to the Defence Procurement.

As the IMC we were therefore truly surprised to learn of the very first indication that the

recommendations we had forwarded to the National Cabinet, which Cabinet adopted as its own

decisions, were being questioned by some in our country on the basis of allegations about

corruption.

That first indication was the information that a document making this allegation of corruption had

been placed overnight in the mail boxes of Members of Parliament by unknown persons.

With the authorisation of Cabinet, we readily agreed that an investigation team should be

established to investigate the allegations that had been made. We therefore met the Auditor

General, the NDPP and the Public Protector at the Union Buildings in Pretoria to inform them

accordingly, which included our assurance that all the Government Ministries and Departments

concerned had been instructed fully to cooperate with them, with them working as the Joint

Investigation Team (JIT).

We were indeed very concerned when some in our country challenged the correctness of the

subsequent JIT Report without presenting any contrary facts. Rather, this repudiation of the JIT

Report focused on questioning the personal integrity of the Auditor General, which upset us.

In this regard our Cabinet firmly communicated its conviction about the integrity, honesty and

competence of the State Institutions which constituted the JIT, rejecting the insinuation which was

made at that time that it was only foreign institutions which could produce an honest report about

the whole process relating to the SDPP.

We were very concerned that despite the fact that nobody whatsoever presented any material

evidence which challenged the facts and conclusions of the JIT, nevertheless the public

campaign seemed to grow in strength that extensive corruption had attended the SDPP process,

with its outcome being freely characterised pejoratively as “the arms deal”.

In this regard we were particularly disturbed at the enthusiastic willingness of many in our media

to propagate and confirm the notion that there had been an “arms deal” characterised by corrupt

practice on the part of those of us who had been intimately involved in all the processes which

resulted in the SDPP.


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This media response clearly demonstrated a determination to persuade our people as a whole,

and incidentally the international community, that our Government’s repudiation of the allegations

of corruption was self-serving and had no substance or legitimacy.

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 confirm the resort to

lies and deliberate fabrications as a legitimate instrument in our public discourse.

One of the non-governmental organisations in our country which wants the Nation to accept it as

a principled fighter against corruption has said, responding to the Report of the Judicial

Commission that:

“There has hardly ever been an arms deal of this scale that is free of corruption – to have found

no evidence of corruption in this instance is therefore highly unlikely.”

This constitutes a simple statement that whatever the concrete facts about the SDPP anybody

might produce, including the JIT and the Judicial Commission, our Nation must accept the

rumours, the gossip and the unsubstantiated allegations that the SDPP contracts were corruptly

awarded as being correct!

What remained unsaid, but is an essential component part of the argument about the allegedly

ineluctable corruption in “arms deals”, is – what else would you expect of an African

Government?

what do you expect from the natives

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