Government suppresses critical engagement in arms deal

The way the African national Congress (ANC) handled the arms deal in which the South African government is acquiring large volumes of arms that are expected to be costing around 300 billion rands by the year 2010 has denied South Africans of fundamental democratic rights.

The right to access information, freedom of expression, and receiving of essential services has been severely undermined by the arms acquisition programme. The three issues are critical for democracy, particularly in countries like South Africa where many people have been deprived of basic service.

With limited resources to provide essential services to people, debates on how money should be distributed must be a wide and consultative process that encourages and considers different voices. However, the ANC has completely rejected this requirement for good governance and has caused an outcry among the taxpayers.

While billions of rands are spend on preparing for imagined enemies and wars, South African people have more immediate enemies and wars to fight against: poverty, Aids, illiteracy, unemployment and corruption among government officials themselves just to mention but a few. While the African National Congress (ANC) government claims to represent the plight of the victims of apartheid and the poor, its acquisition of arms tells a different story. Terry Crawford Browne chairperson for Economists Allied for Arms Reduction representing the poor is now taking government to court demanding that the entire arms deal should be scrapped because it does not meet the constitutional requirement on transparency. Crawford Browne argues that the arms deal programme violates the constitutional rights of citizens to adequate housing and socioeconomic rights and does not satisfy the constitutional injunction that; “that the exercise of public power must be open and transparent.”

Government has completely denied principles of transparency around the arms deal. The denial of information to public and suppression of opposing views has been a matter of great concern. While this deal has serious implications on the tax payers and service delivery it also put serious strains on democratic principles, such as transparence and accountability.

While the initial cost of the arms deal was estimated at 43 billion rands, however government has never made an effort to explain to the taxpayers that the value will in ten years will go up to 300 billion rands, despite the fact that cabinet minister were warned. The government neither gave nay explanation in terms of why it chose to spend such amounts of money on buying arms, instead of spending it on education, health, and other social services.

Media efforts to stimulate such a debate were frustrated by government officials who often evoked apartheid regime laws or simply refused to cooperate in order to stifle critical engagements and silencing opposing voices, a trend now becoming popular in the ruling party the ANC. The ANC recently has been accused with it ally Congress of South African Trade Union (Cosatu) of stifling debates in the alliance by labeling opposing voices as counter-revolution. There also been tension between the media and the presidency as the later accused the former of witch-hunting.

Many people suffered verbal attacks from government officials, when they called for investigations into the arms deal. An ANC MP Andrew Feinstein was sidelined and decided to resign from parliament. After months of government defending its officials against allegation of corruption and fraud in the deal government eventually gave and agreed to the public hearings into the arms.

Last week after the findings on the investigations into the arms deal were announced the Mail and Guardian newspaper alleged that the South African president Thabo Mbeki evoked another apartheid law that give him powers to scrutinize and censor the findings

The arms deal has forced the ANC official to evoke several apartheid laws. When the much-awaited hearings were to be conducted the first victim was the media that had actually brought the matter to the attention of both government and public. The public protector Selby Baqwa barred broadcasting media from recording the public hearing citing national security and other reasons.

In his judgement against the presence of broadcast media at the hearing the Public Protector Selby Baqwa used Section 118(a) of the Defense Act, of 1957 that requires the permission of the Minister of Defense to convey information regarding certain aspects of the Defense Force. And Section 11 of the Armaments Development and Production Act. Act 57 of 1968 prohibits the disclosure by any person, including the news media of any information relating to the acquisition in connection with armament by for or on behalf of the Armament Corporation without the written authority of the Minister or other authorized person.

From the provision of the above Acts Baqwa claimed that if the proceedings are broadcast directly, he would have no control of what a witness might say or not say. It remained to be explained as to how the absence of a camera would enable him to control the words of the witnesses. Baqwa implies that he wants to censor the witness. Baqwa was using apartheid laws to censor witness and to interfere with the free flow of information.

The hearings led to the arrest of the Chief parliament whip Tony Yengeni for allegedly receiving a bribe from the Arms Company.

The Mail and Guardian report has again brought the whole investigation process into question. Journalists and activists’ struggle to get more information on the deal and also to supply the public with correct information has been constantly frustrated by government officials.

Crawford Browne’s decision to settle the issue in the court of law should be understood from the context of this frustration. In actual fact the civil society must work together to insure that enough pressure is put on government to cancel the deal, and use the money in educating the nations, and providing affordable health service and many other service that South African have no access to.

Whistle-blower in danger

Questions about safety of whistle blowers under state protection witness programmes in South Africa came to the spotlight this week as The Star newspaper reported that: South African policeman who blew the whistle on his colleagues of NorthEast Rand Dog Unit for setting dogs on Mozambican illegal immigrants and record the incidents with a video, vowed he will never do it again.

The policeman says the whistle blowing has put himself and his family in danger because the state witness protection programme is not providing enough security.

The policeman gave the South African Broadcast Corporation SABC the amateur video footage that showed the accused policemen setting dogs on the immigrants. The footage was shown to the minister of Safety and Security Steve Tshwete and National Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi before it was aired on television on the SABC. The footage received wide publicity.

The footage was also used to construct charges against the policemen. However, this week when the trail began the policeman who provided the footage claims that his life and that of his family has been in constant danger. He also claims that he is being sideline at work.

The incident flies in the face of the Protected Disclosure Act of 2000, that makes provision for procedures in terms which employees in both the public and private sector who disclose information of unlawful or corrupt conduct by their employers or fellow employees, are protected from occupational detriment.