Arms deal 'firmly on Scopa agenda'

2010-07-21 21:54

Cape Town - The DA on Wednesday welcomed the public accounts standing committee's (Scopa) scheduled meetings to probe the various investigations into the arms deal.

The programme included a meeting on August 4 to discuss the handover of cases relating to the arms deal from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to the Hawks, Democratic Alliance's David Maynier and Mark Steel said.

The programme also included meetings to discuss the arms deal and consider submissions from other interested parties on August 10, 12, and 13.

"The meeting with the Hawks will give Scopa the opportunity to probe the state of current investigations being conducted into the arms deal," they said.

The Hawks should demonstrate they were serious about conducting a proper investigation into the arms deal by ensuring there was a sufficient number of properly qualified investigators, that they were properly resourced, and co-operated with investigating authorities overseas.

Moreover, the meetings would give Scopa the opportunity to probe changes made to the final report of the joint investigation report into the strategic defence procurement packages.

There was quite unambiguous evidence available in the public domain that the draft version of the joint report was substantially altered, to radically change the nature of the report's findings.

"The Scopa meetings on the arms deal will hopefully go some way to getting to the bottom of what really happened during the arms deal," Maynier and Steel said.

- SAPA