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

German Company Thyssen Suspected of Kickbacks to South Africa

 

Publication 

Sapa
BC-GERMANY-SA-ARMS-THYSSEN

Issued

Berlin
Date 2006-07-01

Reporter

 Sapa

 

German authorities are investigating the technology and industrial company Thyssen over suspicions that it paid kickbacks in order to sell warships to South Africa, Der Spiegel magazine said in an article due to appear on Monday.

Peter Lichtenberg, a public prosecutor in the western city of Dusseldorf, said his office was "carrying out an inquiry" focusing on a payment of 30 million German marks (15.3 million euros, 19.6 million dollars) appearing in the German company's accounts.

The prosecutor believes the payment may represent an under-the-table payment paid by Thyssen relating to its later sale of four Meko A 200 warships to the South African navy in December 1999.

Thyssen confirmed it was the subject of an inquiry but said it was confident the suspicions would turn out to be unfounded.

The magazine reported that German police and judicial authorities had visited sites of the shipbuilders Blohm+Voss and HDW -- both subsidiaries of the German group ThyssenKrupp.

They also visited sites run by another German firm, MAN Ferrostaal -- a subsidiary of the German industrial conglomerate MAN, it said.

The 700-million-mark sale of the ships was initially rejected in 1994, Der Spiegel said, but was accepted weeks later *1 after the current South African President Thabo Mbeki -- then vice-president -- reviewed the decision.

With acknowledgement to Sapa.


*1 A very good place to start of an enquiry, without fear nor favour, by the South African National Prosecuting Authority's Directorate for Special Operations.

Just why the Auditor-General's, Shauket Fakie's, forensic investigation in 2000/2001 was quite so useless, is easy to see.