Publication: Sapa Issued: Dusseldorf Date: 2006-07-01 Reporter: Sapa Reporter: Reporter:

Bribes Suspected in Sale of Warships to South Africa

 

Publication 

Sapa
RPT-BC-GERMANY-SA-LD-WARSHIPS

Issued

Dusseldorf
Date 2006-07-01

Reporter

 Sapa

 

German prosecutors are investigating possible kickbacks in a sale of warships to South Africa by a German shipbuilding consortium, a prosecutor confirmed Saturday.

The German news magazine Der Spiegel was to appear Monday with a report that the "irregularities" were suspected of occurring in 1999.

South Africa ordered the four corvettes for coastal protection as part of efforts to modernize its navy. The Thyssen group led a consortium that won the contract to build the vessels, which had been designed in Hamburg.

"We are conducting an inquiry," said Dusseldorf prosecutions spokesman Peter Lichtenberg when asked by Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa for comment on the Spiegel story. He declined to disclose more, saying this might harm the inquiry.

Der Spiegel's report said it was suspected that the equivalent of 15 million euros (19 million dollars) may have been paid in bribes and then concealed in the shipbuilders' accounts as "expenses." It said the possible charges included bribery and tax evasion.

The magazine said there had been a coordinated raid on June 19 on the offices of consortium partners Blohm and Voss in Hamburg, HDW in the Baltic port of Kiel, Thyssen Rheinstahl Technik and MAN Ferrostaal in the western city of Essen.

Thyssen Group spokesman Klaus Pepperhoff said, "We are confident that this suspicion will not be confirmed as the inquiry proceeds."

The prosecutor declined to confirm the raids. Issuing its report before publication on Monday, Der Spiegel said prosecutors, police and tax officials were now studying the records seized.

The post-apartheid government in South Africa decided in 1994 to buy new warships, but the German consortium was scratched from the five-country shortlist of suppliers in December of that year, Der Spiegel said.

By that point, only British and Spanish suppliers were left in the race. But four weeks later, the Germans suddenly came back onto the shortlist, with President Thabo Mbeki announcing during a visit by a German minister and businessman that the issue was wide open.

The magazine said the Germans then moved to the front in a complicated tendering procedure and an order for the four warships was signed on December 3, 1999.

The decision was criticized in South Africa, with an inquiry concluding in 2001 that the Germans should have been eliminated in the first round for failing to meet several requirements, Der Spiegel said.

Two of the MEKO-A-200-class vessels were built at Blohm and Voss's yard in Hamburg and two at HDW in Kiel. They are equipped with Exocet surface-to-surface missiles and with missiles to shoot down planes, according the defence-industry media.

The first was delivered in 2003. The MEKO is Blohm and Voss's standard corvette and frigate series. A corvette *1 is a vessel slightly smaller than a frigate and is suited mainly for coastal protection work.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.


*1 A corvette is a vessel in the 1 000 to 2 000 tonne class.

The MEKO-200AS acquired by the SA Navy is 3 600 tonne. It is clearly a light frigate and not a corvette. In fact, the SA Navy originally called its acquisition a patrol corvette, purposefully to deceive the South African tax-paying funders of the acquisition that they were actually acquiring a platform of more modest capability than a frigate. The MEKO-200AS is actually the most modern frigate platform in the world today, along with luxury items such as CODAG-WARP (Combined Diesel and Gas Turbine - Waterjet Propulsion) and advanced anti-radar stealth features. Only purchasing 1970/80s vintage Exocet MM40 anti-ship missiles, as well as generally reducing the combat suite equipment by 50% to fit in with the Thomson-got-you-over-a-barrel budget, makes the overall capability of the Valour-Class Frigates rather modest.

That's why the Valour-Class frigate is indeed suited mainly for coastal protection work, when it was originally design and costed as a full-blown blue water multi-role naval surface combatant.

Anyway, the SA Navy now officially calls its MEKO-200ASs frigates - not that this makes them any more useful for much more than coastal protection work.