South African Arms Deal

The Strategic Defence Package or the Strategic Defence Acquisition was a South African military procurement package. It involved a US$4.8 billion (R30 billion in 1999 rands) purchase of weaponry by the African National Congress government finalised in 1999. It has been subject to repeated, seemingly substantive, allegations of corruption.

The South African Department of Defence's Strategic Defence Acquisition aimed to modernise its defence equipment, which included the purchase of corvettes, submarines, light utility helicopters, lead-in fighter trainers and advanced light fighter aircraft.

The South African government announced in November 1998 that it intended to purchase 28 BAE/SAAB JAS 39 Gripen fighter aircraft from Sweden at a cost of R10.875 billion, i.e. R388 million (about US$65 million) per plane.

The Arms Deal was plagued by accusations of corruption and in 2011 President Zuma announced a commission of enquiry "into allegations of fraud, corruption, impropriety or irregularity in the Strategic Defence Procurement Packages". The Commission was chaired by Judge Seriti, a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeal and became known as the Seriti Commission.

In a January 2001 report, the Attorney-General of the Western Cape and the SIU's own senior legal advisor recommended further investigation:

[T]here are sufficient grounds in terms of the Special Investigating Units and Special Tribunals Act No 74 of 1996, for a special investigating unit to conduct an investigation, and, in our opinion, such an investigation is warranted.

A joint investigative team looked at the arms deal in 2000. This team consisted of the auditor general, the public defender and the national director of public prosecution. Their published November 2001 report stated that there were no grounds to believe that the government had acted "illegally or improperly".

But, in October 2009, documents provided by Cape Town businessman Richard Young, whose company, CCII Systems, lost the tender for the navy's new corvettes, showed their initial report had been doctored, factual bases had been removed and its conclusions changed.

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