National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete’s decision to disallow a question by the Democratic Alliance (DA) to President Thabo Mbeki over the multibillion-rand arms deal undermined Parliament’s constitutional obligation to hold the president to account, DA chief whip Douglas Gibson said yesterday.

Mbete ruled last week that the request to question Mbeki over an alleged meeting he had with arms company Thomson-CSF failed to be “a question that complies with the criteria of international or national importance”.

The request, she said, “makes innuendos or imputes irregular conduct” about the president.

The DA is seeking legal advice from senior counsel on Mbete’s refusal to allow the question.

Mbete’s decision could not be allowed to stand, Douglas said, as the principle involved and the precedent set were too important.

The DA was in possession of a fax sent to Mbeki by Thomson-CSF senior vice-president B de Bollardiere confirming that they met in mid-December 1998 in Paris, shortly after the arms contract was approved by the cabinet, Gibson said.

Such a meeting, if it took place, would have been highly irregular as Mbeki was at the time head of the ministerial committee in charge of the arms deal negotiations.

All attempts so far to confirm with Mbeki his involvement in such a meeting had been blocked or ignored, Gibson said. Another fax referred to assurances Mbeki allegedly gave that Thomson-CSF would be awarded the combat system and sensors contract, he said.

Gibson said Mbete had used her prerogative incorrectly, especially in view of the fact that the speaker’s office had allowed the DA to ask former deputy president Jacob Zuma the same question in March 2003.

“If a question to the president that he could either confirm or deny is prohibited, it means that Parliament has been shut down.”

With acknowledgement to Linda Ensor and Business Day.