South Africa: MPs Unconvinced By Arms Control Unit's Explanations
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
21 August 2008
Posted to the web 21 August 2008
Wyndham Hartley
Cape Town
The national arms control watchdog had offered no compelling reasons for its reporting responsibilities to Parliament to be reduced, MPs told the National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC) secretariat yesterday.
Discussions in Parliament's defence committee yesterday centred on the NCACC Amendment Bill which suggests that the obligation of the committee to report to Parliament each quarter on weapons transfers should be scrapped.
In public hearings last week the NCACC was accused of being in contempt of Parliament for failing in recent years to report to Parliament at all .
Defence committee chairman Fezile Bhengu told an NCACC and defence department delegation that he would have felt more sympathetic about the request for a reduction in reporting obligations if the NCACC had been delivering them, which they had not.
Manie Schoeman of the African National Congress told the head of the NCACC secretariat Dumisani Dladla that the committee would need a compelling reason if it was to consider scrapping the quarterly reporting obligation and this had not yet been provided.
Bhengu said the matter would be taken up with Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota.
There was also robust discussion on the issue of confidentiality. The bill asks that a confidential contract to supply arms by a South African company be respected.
MPs across all parties demanded to know if this meant that such contracts precluded Parliament being informed of the weapons transfers.
Bhengu said : "There is absolutely nothing that cannot be disclosed to Parliament because cabinet accounts to Parliament and not Parliament to cabinet."
He said the only issue on the table was how the confidential information would be handled by the committee, and pointed to the precedent of the intelligence committee which was constantly being given access to confidential information.
Dladla assured the committee that Parliament would get full disclosure of weapons transactions . The issue was getting the sensitive information, which arms purchasing countries might not want other countries to share for national security reasons , before Parliament without it going to the public.
Democratic Alliance MP Rafiek Shah asked how the NCACC could remain faithful to their contracts if they agreed to confidentiality clauses and still had to disclose this information to Parliament.
The delegation said reporting weapons transfers to Parliament was a constitutional requirement of which all purchasers were made aware .
Dladla said the NCACC did not want to downscale its reporting obligations , and did not want to be seen as being needlessly secretive.
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