WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2008-01-09 Time: 00:00:00 Posted By: Jan
[Ouch! Jan]
By Deon de Lange
President Thabo Mbeki could be grilled by his own party on what he knows about the controversial multibillion-rand arms deal.
The ANC’s new national executive committee (NEC) has appointed a special committee to draft a “detailed factual report” on the arms deal.
Asked if Mbeki was likely to be called to testify before the committee, new ANC treasurer-general Mathews Phosa, who is also a member of the special committee, said the party “will not be tying their (the committee members’) hands in terms of who they should speak to and who they should not speak to”.
He said: “The new NEC is acting properly. We are not interested in who did what, but we want to find out what is going on. We don’t know what is going on and we don’t understand the arms deal.”
According to Phosa, the committee has been given “very broad terms of reference” and the NEC has left it up to the committee members to decide – “in their wisdom” – how to go about the probe.
ANC president Jacob Zuma – at the centre of the arms deal storm – has already indicated in his replying affidavit in 2005 that Mbeki was “very much involved” in the process.
Privately, senior leaders in the new NEC, which is dominated by Zuma supporters, also believe Mbeki should answer in his capacity as former deputy president of the country and for having actively participated in the process on behalf of government.
The committee’s investigations, based on information from “official arms deal sources”, could entangle more senior party and government leaders in the controversial and the most expensive arms acquisition in the country’s democratic dispensation.
The committee members are Phosa, ANC deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe, communist leader Jeremy Cronin, NEC member Sankie Mthembi-Mahanyele, former defence force general Siphiwe Nyanda, Education Minister Naledi Pandor, businessman Cyril Ramaphosa and Housing Minister Lindiwe Sisulu.
Ironically, in November 2001 ANC MPs unanimously accepted the report of the Joint Investigating Task Team that was established by Mbeki to look into the arms deal.
This report, which declared the acquisition of about R40 billion worth of military hardware legitimate, was extensively criticised by opposition parties at the time – particularly because it had excluded the Heath Investigating Unit from the multi-agency probe.
Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille – one of the first to blow the whistle on allegations of fraud and corruption relating to the arms deal – on Tuesday said this move by the ANC “borders on interference in the judicial process”.
Only an independent judicial inquiry would get to the bottom of the arms deal saga, she said.
DA MP and arms deal spokesperson Eddie Trent echoed De Lille’s call for a “proper reopening of the probe”.
In another indication of the radical power shift that has taken place since Zuma trounced Mbeki at the recent ANC conference in Polokwane, the new NEC went far further than its predecessor in condemning the National Prosecuting Authority.
It also reaffirmed its support for Zuma as a candidate for the presidency of the country in the 2009 elections.
The NEC said it sought no special treatment for the party president, who faces corruption charges – only fairness and justice.
Earlier on Tuesday the NEC also announced the names of the 28-member National Working Committee, which had been chosen on Monday.