PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA- AUGUST 28: Paul Holden on August 28, 2014 in Pretoria, South Africa. The Arms deal critics have withdrawn from the commission, which is investigating the 1999 multi-billion rand arms procurement deal. Van Vuuren told the media that the decision was taken because of serious concerns the three had with the way the commission had conducted itself. President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission in 2011 to investigate alleged corruption in the multi-billion rand deal. (Photo by Gallo Images / Foto24 / Craig Niewenhuizen)
Andrew Feinstein: A catalyst in exposing the Arms Deal rot
Andrew Feinstein was one of the earliest former members of the ANC to call out the state capture that was inherent in the infamous Arms Deal.
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA- AUGUST 28: Paul Holden on August 28, 2014 in Pretoria, South Africa. The Arms deal critics have withdrawn from the commission, which is investigating the 1999 multi-billion rand arms procurement deal. Van Vuuren told the media that the decision was taken because of serious concerns the three had with the way the commission had conducted itself. President Jacob Zuma appointed the commission in 2011 to investigate alleged corruption in the multi-billion rand deal. (Photo by Gallo Images / Foto24 / Craig Niewenhuizen)
Andrew Feinstein will be very key in the course of action that is to follow in the Arms Deal saga, after the landmark ruling made on Wednesday, by the North Gauteng High Court.
Who is Andrew Feinstein?
Feinstein is a well-renowned arms trade activist and former member of the ANC. After the shoddy details of the Arms Deal were exposed, Feinstein was the first to bow out from his sworn allegiance to a tainted democratic movement.
He wrote a book on the inner-workings of the party, titled After the Party: Corruption, the ANC and South Africa’s Uncertain Future.
Regarded by critics as one of South Africa’s most important literary scriptures since the advent of democracy in our country, the book unveils, from an insider’s perspective, what life was like under the rule of the then-president, Thabo Mbeki; and unwinds the entanglements of the infamous Arms Deal that saw an estimated $200-million in bribe payments connecting key figures in our government with warship companies in Europe.
He has since taken his fight to a global scale. His latest work, The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, lifts the lid on how “the trade in weapons accounts for around 40 percent of all corruption in all world trade.”
Arms Deal judgment: What will happen now?
After three years of turning in evidence of Judge Willie Seriti’s misfiring in his findings, the North Gauteng High Court ruled that the commission’s conclusion was muddy, to say the least.
While it is still too early to tell, it is likely that the matter will be brought back to the books with a new commission set up by Parliament. Although, the current sitting president, Cyril Ramaphosa, has made indications of his reluctance to launch further commissions of inquiry, due to the hundreds of millions of rand involved in setting them up.
Speaking to Upfront‘s Refilwe Moloto, on Cape Talk, Feinstein described the judgment on the Seriti Commission’s report as “a remarkable global legal precedent.”
“I think it’s a very significant step towards what we would like to see which is, obviously, justice and accountability for the massive corruption that fuelled the Arms Deal; and that really started, in my opinion, the process of State Capture in South Africa.
“My immediate response to the judgment, which was a really damning judgment, was, I suppose, one of elation for civil society in South Africa because Corruption Watch and the Right2Know campaign have done the country an enormous service in bringing this legal review, and then I suppose, enormous pride in the South African judiciary,” he said.
