Zuma reopens arms deal inquiry

16 Sep 2011

In a surprise announcement on Thursday, 15 September 2011, President Jacob Zuma asked Justice and Constitutional Development Minister Jeff Radebe to set up a commission of inquiry to investigate allegations of corruption involving arms suppliers who sold fighter and trainer jets, planes, helicopters, ships and submarines to South Africa.

The terms of reference for this commission, its composition or the timeframes for the investigations have not yet been announced. Opposition political parties and labour representatives have welcomed the news.

It comes more than a year after activist Terry Crawford-Browne appealed to the Constitutional Court in a bid to force the president to re-open investigations.

Times Live reports that formal investigations into the arms deal started in 2000 when Parliament's standing committee on public accounts requested a probe be undertaken.

Independent Online says that in 2009 legal proceedings were instituted in the Western Cape High Court to direct the president to appoint an independent judicial commission of enquiry.

Business Day says that in recent months new evidence has emerged of huge payments of "commissions" to South Africans for facilitating bids to supply weapons has emerged. It says BAE Systems and Ferrostaal have admitted to paying millions of rands to South Africans, notably Fana Hlongwane, a former adviser to the late Defence Minister Joe Modise.

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Paddy Hartdegen

About Paddy Hartdegen

Paddy Hartdegen has been working as a journalist and writer for the past 40 years since his first article was published in the Sunday Tribune when he was just 16-years-old. He has written 13 books, edited a plethora of business-to-business publications and written for most of the major newspapers in South Africa.