Arms Deal Investigation Gets European Muscle

Farrel — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 13:04:00 -0600

Despite repeated claims by government that the arms deal was “not affected by any corruption”, the German government has now asked the National Prosecuting Authority for assistance in their own investigation. That kind of adds a bit more weight to the accusations. Independent Democrat leader Patricia De Lille is also getting back to her old corruption busting roots that everyone initially loved her for, as opposed to her suicidal political strategies in the Cape Town local government, by personally going to both Germany and the UK to meet with investigators there.

The German investigation is focusing on Chippy Shaik (brother of already convicted bribery middle man Schabir Shaik, fancy that) and his alleged $3 million bribe he solicited from German firm ThyssenKrupp, who were awarded the contract to build the SA Navy’s Valour class frigates. At the time Chippy was the head of aquisitions for the arms deal so of course he would be the guy to bribe if you had to, not to mention the guy to throw a few juicy contracts his brothers way. The eye opening thing to me was that up until 1999 bribery wasn’t even illegal in Germany, you just filed it under ‘other expenses’ on your balance sheet.

To me it seems the pressure is building on Thabo Mbeki at an increasing rate. It’s one thing to brush off accusations of bribery from the “jealous opposition”, it’s a lot harder when the governments of Germany and the UK start making the same rumbling noises. This coupled with the whole FNB pulled ad fiasco is going to make the upcoming State of the Nation address very interesting.

Politics.za: Arms Deal Investigation Gets European Muscle

Arms Deal Investigation Gets European Muscle