Last December, in the week between Christmas and New Year, some
important people were summoned to a meeting at the Cape Town home of ANC Chief Whip, Tony
Yengeni. Those who qualified for
official travel privileges, were warned not to use them when booking their
airtickets, as they might later be more easily traced.
The main item on the agenda was
what to do about the investigations called for and approved by Parliament’s
Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) into the arms procurement
programme. The Hon. Mr Yengeni is not
only chief whip, charged with making sure that all ANC MPs tow the party
line; he was also chairman of
Parliament’s Defence Committee at the time that the weapons deals were approved
and concluded, remember? A luxury motor vehicle
he acquired from one of the companies involved in the arms deals when he
still headed the defence committee is currently the subject of some
controversy. ‘I and others have money in
our bank accounts that we can’t explain,’ Yengeni told the people gathered at
his home in December. ‘We don’t intend to explain it to anyone, either. We deserve it,’ he declared. Turning a hard-won victory to farce is that
what the struggle’s come to?
And were we witnessing a meeting of a chapter of La Xhosa Nostra?
Yengeni has since taken personal control of the Standing Committee on
Public Accounts. (Goodbye Mr Feinstein.)
So much for the government’s commitment to exposing the truth.
The Editor