Publication: Sunday Times Issued: Date: 2005-08-28 Reporter: Brendan Boyle Reporter:

Speaker Squashes DA Bid to Quiz Mbeki on Arms Deal

 

Publication 

Sunday Times
Date

2005-08-28

Reporter

 Brendan Boyle

Web link

 

Speaker Baleka Mbete has refused to allow the Democratic Alliance to question President Thabo Mbeki, when he comes to Parliament next week, about meetings he might have had with Schabir Shaik’s French partners in the arms deal.

“The question has been disapproved because this is not the way to raise issues of this nature. In fact, in terms of the practice of Parliament, it amounts to an allegation of irregular conduct on the part of the President and that’s not how such matters are raised,” Parliament’s head of public affairs, Luzuko Jacobs, told the Sunday Times.

Jacobs said the DA should table a substantive motion, with supporting evidence.

Shaik is appealing a 15-year prison sentence for, among other things, trying to solicit a R500 000-a-year bribe from Thomson-CSF, now called Thales, for the former deputy president, Jacob Zuma.

According to a copy of a letter held by the DA, Mbeki met Thomson-CSF president Jean-Paul Perrier and vice-presidents Michel Denis and B de Bollardiere in Paris in December 1998, about a month after Cabinet announced the preferred bidders for the $4-billion arms procurement contracts *1.

“We deeply appreciate your advice related to the present situation in South Africa,” De Bollardiere says in the letter sent on a Thomson-CSF letterhead to then Deputy President Mbeki.

He says then ambassador Barbara Masekela had indicated that they might meet again in South Africa early in 1999 to “enter into further details as far as the implementation of the black empowerment policy of our joint venture African Defence Systems is concerned”.

DA public accounts committee delegate Eddie Trent has tried to raise the matter in a statement to Parliament, in questions and in a letter to Mbeki in June.

In the question that he tabled for oral reply by Mbeki next Thursday, Trent asked whether Mbeki had met Thomson-CSF representatives in December 1998 and, if so, whether he had given them any assurance of a share of the arms-deal business. He also asked whether Mbeki had met senior South African Navy officers to discuss the arms-acquisition programme for the French corvettes.

Parliament’s chief editor for questions, Michael Plaatjies, wrote to the DA twice on Thursday, once to say the question had been put on the order paper and a second time, hours later, to say it had been withdrawn *2.

“We have been informed of the Speaker’s ruling that the question falls short of being a question that complies with the criteria of international or national importance,” he said.

Plaatjies said it was unacceptable also because it “makes innuendoes or imputes irregular conduct”.

Trent said: “The question does not impute irregular conduct or contain innuendo, it simply poses a question. It is quite wrong for the Speaker to censor a straight question like this. Doing so prevents the DA from holding the President to account and prevents South Africa from knowing the truth about the arms deal,” he said.

Judith February, head of the Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s (Idasa) parliamentary information and monitoring service, said that Mbete’s interpretation of the rules was reasonable.

“If they [the DA] really are sitting on information about meetings and faxes involving the President *4, it might be better to do it in a substantive motion. If they say they have the evidence, they should pin their colours to the mast.”

DA leader Tony Leon said: “This is an outrageous denial of free speech. If the Speaker refuses to reverse her decision, we will be taking legal advice on the matter.”

With acknowledgements to Brendan Boyle and the Sunday Times.


*1  This was a nearly whole year before the contracts were signed by the DoS and Armscor with Thomson-CSF and ADS on 3 December 1999.

*2  It was withdrawn because it is essentially an unanswerable question

It is a little like the legal classic "do you still beat your wife?".

The answerer to this one would be deep in the poo for what he did by saying yes and deep in the poo for lying if he said no.

*3  As though it's not of international importance when a deputy president is having secret meetings with executives of a foreign company about how to commit fraud.

As though it's not of national importance when a deputy president if having secret meetings with executives of a private company about how to circumvent the stipulations of the Constitution of South Africa Act, Act 108 of 1996.

*4  These are unchallenged evidentiary items right out of the Durban trial. There existence requires answers - whether  in response to member's question, substantive motion, subpoena, cross-examination, die tjoep metode, whatever.

It all makes the alleged conduct of another deputy president rather tame by comparison. Even he had to answer similar questions about meeting Thales's executive (although it's a shame that he lied in his written answers).