Programme News

21 October 2014
(News)
  Two London-based critics won't testify at the Seriti commission of inquiry, despite the commission saying that it will reissue their subpoenas. Arms deal critics Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein will not testify at the arms deal commission, despite the commission’s previous announcement that it would reissue their subpoenas. It emerged on Monday that Holden’s subpoena...
21 October 2014
(News)
Hennie Van Vuuren, author and key critic of the arms deal, has declined to take the oath or give evidence at the arms procurement commission. Hennie Van Vuuren is currently a researcher at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation and co-author of The Devil in the Detail: How the Arms Deal changed everything. Van Vuuren and co-researchers Paul Holden and Andrew Feinstein withdrew their...
21 October 2014
(News)
  Legal action will be taken against arms deal critic Hennie van Vuuren for refusing to testify, the Seriti Commission of Inquiry said on Monday. Chairman of the inquiry, Judge Willie Seriti, told Geoff Budlender, SC, representing Van Vuuren, that the course of action would be decided on. “The law is there. It will have to take its course. We will decide in due course on the sort of...
21 October 2014
(News)
The arms companies have successfully avoided scrutiny at the Seriti Commission, essentially putting the whistle-blowers and critics on trial. The absence of the arms companies from the Seriti Commission is telling. The commission’s first phase was focused on the arms deal’s rationale – why the South African government bought what it did, the deal’s affordability and the...
20 October 2014
(Press release)
This Commission of Inquiry into the up to R70 billion Arms Deal – the Arms Procurement Commission - represents a historic opportunity to support the struggle for transparency and accountability in South Africa. Your mandate, Commissioners, to establish the facts by holding the powerful to account for alleged misconduct means you carry a great burden. This mandate speaks directly to the...
17 October 2014
(News)
Botswana’s defence minister, Ramadeluka Seretse, has insisted that his government will not give South Africa an undertaking that a Botswana citizen wrongly repatriated to face murder charges will be spared the hangman’s noose. This follows the deportation of the suspect, Edwin Samotse, to Botswana in August this year, contrary to South African government policy and a ministerial court...
17 October 2014
(News)
Trade and industry director general Lionel October told Swedish television that South Africa was “naive” when it came to negotiating offset agreements (known as industrial participation) linked to the 1999 arms deal. “I think South Africa was naive and was not clear about its objectives in this ­programme, so the offset was badly structured,” October said in a Swedish...
17 October 2014
(Press release)
The Wits Justice Project was disturbed to hear the unfounded allegations made against it by Acting National Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services (DCS), Zach Modise. These allegations were made during the course of Acting Commissioner Modise’s testimony in the sentencing hearing of Oscar Pistorius, on Thursday 16 October 2014. The Wits Justice Project is an independent...
16 October 2014
(News)
The R60bn-R70bn arms deal has wrought havoc on the lives of ordinary South Africans and corrupted our politics for the past 15 years. It has profited international arms corporations while weakening our democratic state institutions. The cover-up that followed the arms deal has put in place a system of patronage with the purpose of keeping alleged corrupt elites out of prison. It allows them to...
15 October 2014
(News)
A group of organisations calling for the Sereti inquiry's disbanding said a commission statement labelling them 'foot soldiers' was racist. A group of civil society organisations calling themselves the arms deal focus group has condemned a “racist” statement, issued on behalf of the arms deal commission of inquiry. The commission’s statement condemned a call by the...