The Congress of South African Trade Unions welcomes the decision by the UK auditing body, the Accountancy and Actuarial Discipline Board (AADB), to launch a new investigation into the South African arms deal.

They are to investigate KPMG, which advised BAE Systems on offshore companies that were used to pay "commissions" to influence the awarding of contracts in South Africa's R47.4-billion defence procurement package. BAE has also been under investigation by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) since 2007 for issuing bribes in South Africa. It recently paid a £286-million fine for failing to comply with global anti-bribery rules.

The federation however regrets that it should have been left up to British organisations to investigate what should have been probed by the South African government and its agencies, in particular the Hawks.

The Hawks recently told Parliament that they were abandoning their investigation into the same matter, because it would cost too much to pursue the investigation and that only one specialist investigator was available to trawl through the 460 boxes of files and 4.7million computer-generated documents in his possession relating to the arms deal.

COSATU welcomes the assurances by both the SAPS and KPMG that they will however assist the British investigation if requested.

COSATU reaffirms its view that the arms deal is a litmus test of the government's seriousness in rooting out corruption, which threatens the foundations of our democracy and must be fought wherever it occurs, with no exceptions.
We warmly welcome recent indications that the government is now turning its verbal condemnation of corruption into deeds, for example Pravin Gordhan's commitment that the government "will clamp down on crooks by introducing new public disclosure rules for all prospective government contracts and imposing stiff penalties on companies and individuals involved in tender corruption".
We applaud also Richard Baloyi's special anti-corruption unit, which will investigate senior government officials with undeclared business interests in dealings with government, performing remunerative duties outside public service, soliciting bribes and receiving grants or benefits unlawfully.

He was absolutely right when he said that "Corruption is the single most threat to good governance; it has the propensity to collapse an economy".

All these promises will turn out to be hollow however if those involved in corruption in the arms deal are not investigated, and anyone found to be implicated is prosecuted and punished.