By IPS Correspondents
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 5 2003 (IPS)

After months of investigations, South Africans are no nearer to the truth behind accusations that the country’s deputy-president, Jacob Zuma, was part of alleged corruption in the government’s multi-billion-dollar arms acquisition deal.

The long-running saga has now pitted Zuma, one of the most powerful and influential members of the ruling African National Congress (ANC), against the director of South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Bulelani Ngcuka.

Ngcuka’s special investigating unit, popularly known as "the Scorpions", is probing the allegations against the deputy president. Although Ngcuka is also well-connected in the ANC, he has fiercely defended his independence.

Besides promoting tensions in the ruling party, just ahead of the country’s general elections early next year, the investigation is also an unwelcome distraction for Zuma. Zuma is the main facilitator of the peace talks in the central African country of Burundi. He has been the key in keeping the peace process in that country – which is teetering on the edge of collapse – on its legs.

Zuma is alleged to have tried to solicit a R500,000 (around 67,000 U.S. dollars) bribe from Thomson-CSF/Thales – a French arms company that has won a multi-million-dollar contract to provide weapons to South Africa.

He has dismissed the allegations and slammed the Scorpions for the way they have handled the investigation.. "I have had to learn from the media and from affidavits … that I solicited a bribe of R500,000 per year to protect a French company from being investigated for contraventions arising from the arms deal. This is utterly baseless. I have nothing to hide and reject with contempt any suggestion that I solicited, or in any way agreed to accept or even discussed accepting a bribe," said Zuma late last week.

Zuma has also claimed that the Scorpions are trying to convict him in the media, by leaking details of their investigation to the South African media, before formally charging him in a court of law.

Ngcuka has denied Zuma’s accusations.

At the same time, the Scorpions leader has also been the victim of a smear campaign, with anonymous e-mails containing serious personal and political allegations against him, being sent to the country’s editors. While the South African media have reported on the existence of the e-mails, they have not detailed the unsubstantiated allegations.

Ngcuka has hit back at those smearing his name, describing them as "comrade criminals" – a reference to members of South Africa’s former liberation movement, who are now in government and lining their pockets through corruption.

"In a way it’s flattering that they have chosen to single me out publicly. It shows they have failed to corrupt me," he said.

There is no immediate end in sight to the long-running saga, with some reports indicating the Scorpions are only likely to wrap-up their investigation in a couple of months.

South African President Thabo Mbeki has made it clear that he is "concerned" about the allegations against his deputy and that he wants the investigation wrapped-up as quickly as possible.

The allegations against Zuma are only one of a number of enquiries into South Africa’s 3.6-billion-U.S.-dollar arms acquisition programme. Since its inception in 1996, the programme has been the subject of intensive investigation by parliament and independent state agencies, among others.

Former ANC chief whip in parliament, Tony Yengeni, resigned from his position – and was nominally disciplined by the ruling party – after it was revealed that he had received a discount on a vehicle provided by a company linked to the arms deal. At the time he received the discount, Yengeni headed parliament’s committee on defence.

The deal has also been heavily criticised as an unnecessary expense for a country that has urgent social and economic development priorities.

But ANC secretary-general, Kgalema Motlanthe, believes the deal is necessary for South Africa. "That South Africa needs to modernise its defence capability is no longer up for debate. Of course there are some who oppose defence spending on principle. Their pacifist view must be respected, even if deployments (of South African troops) in the Congo Motlanthe says investigations on allegations of impropriety by individuals, mainly outside of the decision-making structures of the procurement process, are continuing. "But the investigating agencies, in deciding on these investigations, asserted that, systemically, the procurement had the highest integrity," he says.

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