Pretoria - Cope leader Mosiuoa Lekota has sardonically called for investigations by the Seriti Commission into the government’s controversial arms procurement packages to be “prioritised” with the same urgency as the “income tax persecution” of Julius Malema, the expelled ANC Youth League president.

Malema was placed under sequestration by the Pretoria High Court last month, and Sars has asked for the preservation of his assets.

Speaking in the National Assembly yesterday, Lekota lamented the lack of progress by the arms deal commission, amid the resignations of senior staffers and allegations of interference and hidden motives for delays.

Lekota said the lack of progress by the commission more than 15 months after it started work was cause for serious concern.

“Has the commission been resourced adequately or is there indeed a second agenda to derail the commission’s work, which is to unearth the truth about the arms deal?” Lekota asked.

“It is clear that the ruling party is going to block every effort to call high-profile politicians - including the president - to appear before the commission. Their agenda is to allow the Seriti Commission to limp along until after the 2014 elections and to then let it fade away thereafter.”

He referred to weekend newspaper reports that Judge Willie Seriti had written to anti-arms deal campaigner Terry Crawford-Browne saying “no evidence implicating the African National Congress has been brought to the attention of the commission” and said that the Ferrostaal forensic reports, an internal probe by Swedish multinational SAAB, and the convictions of the ANC’s Tony Yengeni and the former financial adviser to President Jacob Zuma, Schabir Shaik, all suggested that the involvement of top ANC officials should be interrogated by the commission.

Lekota said the level of inaction by the commission could not be allowed, adding that South Africans needed to “know the truth about one of the biggest scams in recent history*1” and that those who had been “implicated by innuendo” should be exonerated*2.

Responding to Lekota’s remarks, Deputy Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Andries Nel rejected his claims and said the commission had “received all (the) support” prescribed in the Commissions Act.

He said Lekota’s statements undermined the independence of the commission and cast aspersions on the judges of the country.

“We would appeal to him to respect the work of the commission,” Nel said.

Lekota later warned that the government was battling to end corruption which was in turn “eating away at the soul of our nation”.

“Unless the government develops capacity to stop corruption at the top, corruption at lower levels will grow stronger all the time,” he said.

“The sharks will continue to batten while the sardines are caught. The multibillion-rand arms deal is undoubtedly one of the most infamous corruption sagas in our country’s history*3. And too many fingers point at influential people in the governing party,” Lekota added.

Political Bureau

With acknowledgement to Shanti Aboobaker and INLSA.

*1*3     Mr Lekota is of course correct.

He was right there at the onset responsible for the implementation of the Arms Deal as Minister of Defence.

What is clear though is he was just the useful tool.

The real accountable persons are Mandela and his useful fool Mbeki.

Their Arms Deal chief spokesman was yet another useful fool, Alex Pinnoccio Erwin.


*2      Those implicated by innuendo would of course include himself.

To his credit, Lekota did initiate the regulatory audit which eventually led to the investigation of the Arms Deal.

To his discredit he was part of the whitewash that was the Joint Investigation.

But now it's a rich resource field for political oppositions.