CAPE TOWN - Despite placing a "fully explanatory" advert in a weekend newspaper as to how he acquired his luxury 4x4 Mercedez-Benz, embattled ANC chief whip Tony Yengeni seems to have sparked off more questions than answers.

However, the opposition says no-one should be satisfied. "Evasive", "full of gaping holes", "even strange" - is how some reacted to the advertisement yesterday.

Four months after the publication of the scandal, Yengeni put out a full-page newspaper advertisement almost as expensive, if not more so, than the car he says he bought for R230 000.

"Time has now come for me to respond," Yengeni's statement says, decrying the "racism" that marked the "whole frenzy and witch-hunt".

He cites two reasons for responding only now:

The matter had detrimentally affected his family; and

The confidential June 29 on-camera interview he had with the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions had since "created room for all manner of unsubstantiated accusations and innuendo".

Responding to the advert, Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon inquired why Yengeni refused to give this information to the parliamentary committee when he was called upon to do so. He said now that Yengeni, by choosing to deal with the matter in a newspaper advert when Parliament was deep into recess meant there would be no room for cross-examination. This "begs more questions than answers".

One fundamental question, asked United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa, was how Yengeni got his car but started paying for it only months later.

Yengeni's explanation is that in 1998 Michael Woerfel, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace SA MD, "recommended that I consider purchasing" the Mercedes Benz ML 320 car.

At the time Yengeni was chairman of the joint standing committee on defence. Daimler Aerospace SA has since been incorporated into the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, the company that won the subcontract to supply radar systems for the corvettes which are part of the multibillion-rand arms deal.

Woerfel "mentioned to me that having a person of my calibre driving the model will do much to market their product," Yengeni says. A sale agreement was concluded on October 15 1998 for the price of R230 052.

Payment of the full purchase price, however, was due only on or before May 1 1999.

Yengeni says the vehicle was damaged, causing delivery to take a little longer as the car still had to be repaired.

Did it have to take him so long to say something as simple as that? asked the Pan Africanist Congress's chief whip, MP Patricia de Lille.

A legal expert says now that Yengeni has put some specifics on the table - with "all the big holes in them" - he might have opened himself up for further scrutiny.

Yengeni was not available yesterday to answer questions arising from his latest move in publishing the advertisement.  

With acknowledgement to Business Day.