The Democratic Alliance (DA) understands that Minister Jeff Radebe, Chairperson of the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), together with officials from the Directorate of Conventional Arms Control (DCAC) will now appear before the Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans on 02 September 2009.
Despite the seriousness of the dodgy arms deals allegations, the minister was not available to appear before the portfolio committee on 19 August 2009.
It is imperative therefore that members of the committee be in a position to properly scrutinise and oversee the NCACC, and for that reason I have written to Mr Mnyamezeli Booi, Chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans, and requested that the NCACC be required to produce the following documents:
- copies of minutes of all meetings of the NCACC between 01 April 2004 and the last meeting of the NCACC;
- copies of all supporting documents and minutes of all meetings of the Scrutiny Committee between 01 April 2004 and the last meeting of the Scrutiny Committee; and
- copies of any reports of investigations conducted by the DCAC's Inspectorate between 01 April 2004 and the last report produced by the DCAC's Inspectorate.
The Scrutiny Committee is responsible for briefing the NCACC ahead of any proposed arms deal. The documents it provides the NCACC with in this regard are the basis on which the NCACC makes its decisions. Therefore they are crucial to understanding its reasoning and must be produced by the NCACC before the meeting with the Portfolio Committee on Defence and Military Veterans on 02 September 2009 if we are to understand how it justified the dodgy deals its has undertaken.
We must have copies of these documents so that we can properly:
- scrutinise the decision making process within the NCACC; and
- most importantly evaluate how criteria concerning internal repression, the violation of human rights, the violation of fundamental freedoms and the escalation of regional conflicts are taken into account by the NCACC before authorising the export of conventional arms from South Africa.
Only then will we be able to properly scrutinise the dodgy arms deals.
We will use the minister's appearance as an opportunity to maintain the spotlight firmly on the dodgy arms deals and the crisis at the NCACC, as well as to probe the dodgy arms deals with countries such as Libya, Syria and Venezuela which were authorised by the NCACC.
We will also use this as an opportunity to probe dodgy arms deals with countries such as Syria and Zimbabwe which are pending authorization by the NCACC. And, finally, we will use this as an opportunity to probe how it was that the NCACC authorised military support equipment to be demonstrated and exhibited in North Korea.
For years the NCACC has been an enigma making important decisions behind closed doors and resisting efforts to hold them to account by refusing to make public annual reports on South Africa's conventional arms trade.
The South African History Archive is currently suing President Jacob Zuma and Minister Jeff Radebe for failing to table the NCACC's annual reports with Parliament for 2005, 2006 and 2007. The application is due to appear before the Pretoria High Court.
The DA will continue to probe these dodgy arms deals until we get to the bottom of the matter.
Statement issued by David Maynier Democratic Alliance shadow minister of defence and military veterans, August 16 2009
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