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The furore around South Africa's multi-billion rand arms deal burst to the surface again yesterday with opposition parties calling for a renewed investigation into the deal.

This followed a report in Business Day newspaper, which said the government's final report on the arms procurement deal was heavily edited, and left out findings on gifts received by key players in the controversial deal.

The final report, handed over to Parliament last year, also omitted "inaccuracies" in a defence department presentation to Parliament's public accounts committee (Scopa), the newspaper said.

Former Scopa chairman Dr Gavin Woods of the Inkatha Freedom Party, who was at the forefront of original calls for a probe into the deal, along with former African National Congress MP Andrew Feinstein and others, said yesterday one of the biggest challenges had been to ensure an "honest and expert investigation" into the deal.

"Opposed by hostile members of the Cabinet and blocked, undermined and abused by internal parliamentary forces, we failed to have the facts of the deal revealed.

"The official investigation facilitated by the auditor general(Shauket Fakie) played a significant part in this failure," he said.

"We now begin to access information which the AG has long sought to keep from the public and Parliament, and from this we begin to confirm much of what we have long suspected - that the inappropriate associations between the AG and members of the Cabinet... during the course of the investigation, gave scope to the grossly misleading and evasive report which was produced".

As further sections of the original draft report and other emerging evidence became available, the real levels of irregularity, which pervaded the deal and cost taxpayers' many extra billions of rands, would become clear.

"As such, members of the executive, the Speaker, the ANC Whippery, and ANC members of Scopa will have much to answer for," Woods said.

Democratic Alliance finance spokeswoman, Raenette Taljaard, called on Fakie to release the comprehensive draft of the joint investigation team's (JIT) report immediately, and to reveal the extent to which Parliament had been misled.

In a substantive motion to be tabled in the National Assembly yesterday, she also called on Speaker Dr Frene Ginwala to order an immediate debate on the issue and take the strongest possible action against any official or public office bearer who had misled the House.

United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa called for a full judicial commission of inquiry into the entire arms deal process.

"The extent to which Parliament has been misled during the arms deal investigation is now coming to light," he said in a statement.

However, Sipho Ngwema, spokesman for the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), which was part of the JIT with the AG and Public Prosecutor, said yesterday the Scorpions special investigating unit had yet to complete its probe into certain aspects of the deal.

Ngwema said the directorate had no comment at this stage, as it was still following-up on certain issues.

Long after the final report had been handed over, the directorate was still subpoenaing people and probing matters.

These investigations were still continuing, he said.

According to Business Day, the new information emerged in draft reports released last week to C2I2 electronics company managing director Richard Young, one of the losing bidders in the deal.

Earlier this year, Young won a court action forcing Fakie to give him documents relating to the investigation into the deal.

The newspaper reported that Fakie said on Tuesday there were good reasons for not including some items in the final report. He also denied the changes were made at the behest of senior members of government.

He was not unduly pressurised to remove any part of the report, nor was it improper to exclude from the final report what at first glance appeared to be evidence of corruption.

The three short paragraphs in the gifts-received section did not specifically conclude that prima facie evidence of corruption was found, Fakie said.

Business Day said an "infuriated" Young had instructed his legal team to formulate charges of perjury, contempt of court, defeating the ends of justice, and offences in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act against Fakie.

Young was not immediately available for further comment yesterday. – Sapa.

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