Arms deal dossier has names of leading South Africans

The allegations have surfaced since the British Serious Fraud Office (SFO) announced two weeks ago that it was investigating BAE Systems, the defence conglomerate that secured a R30bn SA order for Hawk jet trainers and Gripen fighters. The SFO has asked for legal assistance from SA authorities in its probe. The SFO document requests co-operation in pursuing the investigation of more than R1bn in ‘commissions’ paid by BAE on the SA deal. The money went to no fewer than eight entities in terms of ‘consultancy agreements’ dating, in one case, as far back as 1992. The SFO document mentions as beneficiaries of the suspected bribes, among others, former Defence Minister Joe Modise\'s adviser, Fana Hlongwane, and FTNSA Consulting, a company whose principal is, according to the SFO document, former Anglovaal and First National Bank (FNB) chairperson Basil Hersov. The Mail & Guardian report goes into detail about suspected beneficiaries of the bribes mentioned in the document. Full Mail & Guardian Online report

Former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein has once again accused the party of receiving money from arms companies. Beeld says Feinstein, in an article in The Guardian, he repeats earlier claims that the ANC received money from successful arms contractors and that Modise apparently accepted bribes amounting to millions of rands. Feinstein resigned from the ANC and Parliament in 2001 after having been hauled over the coals because of his attitude towards the controversial R30bn arms deal. He was sacked at the time as the leader of the ANC’s parliamentary study group after having expressed his support in Scopa for an inquiry by the Heath investigative unit. When he made these claims in 2004, the ANC denied that it benefited substantially from the arms deals and said Feinstein should either hand over proof to the authorities or keep quiet. According to Feinstein, he and other critics of the arms deal were not surprised by the SFO inquiry. ‘The deal, and the allegations of high-level corruption associated with it, continues to bedevil SA politics six years after the contracts were signed,’ he writes. Full Beeld report on News24 site Full report in The Guardian not available online

Senior BAE executives have also been named as corruption suspects in the leaked document from the Serious Fraud Office, says The Guardian. BAE\'s CE, Mike Turner, is named along with the former chairperson, Sir Dick Evans, and two other executives, in a document dated June 26 last year. The SFO\'s dossier says: ‘There is reasonable cause to believe that all the above-named persons and company have committed offences of corruption.’ The SFO dossier also names BAE\'s group marketing director, Mike Rouse, and the deputy head of the Farnborough marketing operation, Julia Aldridge. Full report in The Guardian See World section (below) for more on allegations against BAE