A small part of the murk surrounding South Africa’s multi-billion dollar arms deal cleared slightly, but only to reveal still greater depths to be plumbed. Former trade union leadr and parliamentarian Moses Mayekiso acknowledges that he, as the head of the SA National Civics Organisation (Sanco) in 1999, signed an agreement supporting the purchase of Gripen fighter jets from Saab in Sweden and its British partner, BAe. Peter Dantjie, then acting general secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers (Numsa) added his name.
At the time, the ANC issued a press statement noting that the two organisations supported the purchase of the Gripen aircraft as part of the arms deal. However, members of the Numsa executive maintained that they had not been consulted and the union still opposed the arms deal.
It has now emerged, through the second part of a two-part Swedish television investigation screened on November 28, that a Swedish businessman with a highly chequered past was also involved with all sides concerned with the agreement. Known to Mayekiso as Leif Valfridsson and to a number of other Sanco and Numsa members merely as Leif, he had worked for the Swedish metalworkers’ union, IF Metall and arranged meetings in South Africa for the present head of Sweden’s Social Democratic Party, Stefan Lofven.
According to Sweden’s TV4 Cold Facts investigative team, Valfridsson’s past includes convictions for armed robbery, burglary and homicide. A decade ago, he was also allegedly involved a series of company scams in Sweden in which Mayekiso’s name was also used. In 1999 he was working for Sanco in “an administrative capacity”.
Further inquiries this week revealed that a person known as Leif Valfridsson was born in Sweden on December 6 1955 as Erik Valfrid Larsson and has the Swedish ID number 0178. Until early 1996 the same person appears to have been known as Leif Erik Gustav Valfridsson before changing his surname to Larsson. Twelve years ago, he emerged as Erik Valfrid Larsson.
Mayekiso maintains that he has never been involved in any business dealings in Sweden with Valfridsson. Informed that the TV4 arms deal investigation had linked his name to possible corruption, Mayekiso agreed to be interviewed. He maintaines that neither he nor Dantjie saw anything wrong in signing an agreement that committed their organisations to support the purchase of Gripen aircraft in exchange for the establishment of a R10 million industrial training school.
He adds that “the ANC had already decided on the arms deal so we saw nothing wrong in supporting the Gripen in exchange for an industrial training school that we thought we needed.” He also felt at the time that the choice of the Gripen was a matter of repaying the solidarity shown by the Swedish government and trade unions for both the South African unions and the anti-apartheid struggle. The agreement was a “quid pro quo”.
However, according to arms deal campaigners Andrew Feinstein and Terry Crawford-Browne, support from Numsa and Sanco was probably crucial in getting the deal done. They point out that, at the time, the ANC faced internal pressure to pull out of the arms deal, and the South African Air Force had rejected the Gripen as unsuitable.
Crawford-Browne and the TV4 team also raise the question of perhaps more than R35 million rand that was apparently paid in bribes by both Saab and BAe and that was possibly channelled through trade unions.
“But the agreement was just about the school,” Mayekiso says. “There was no money involved and it was not just Saab. There were other companies that were also involved (in the deal to establish the school).”
Initial plans were apparently made, but there was an almost immediate rebellion within Numsa’s ranks with questions being asked about the conditional clause committing the union to supporting the Gripen purchase. In any event, as Numsa’s head of training, Dinga Sikwebu, told the Cold Facts team: “We didn’t want or need this school (it) made no sense.” As a result, Numsa repudiated the agreement, pointing out that it had never even been discussed within the union and the school project collapsed.
Amid bitter squabbles that saw Mayekiso ousted, Sanco’s ambitious Sanco Investment Holdings, with its more than 50 registered companies, also collapsed. However, one of those companies, 3rd Wave Telcoms, still appears to be active and has an Erik Valfrid Larsson as a director.
Cape Town, South Africa-based journalist commentator and author specialising in political and economic analysis and labour matters. 
Terry Bell Writes 
selcoolie
December 1, 2012
See aslo: http://www.dn.se/debatt/hivaidssjuka-i-sydafrika-drabbas-hart-av-jasaffaren
”Hiv/aidssjuka i Sydafrika drabbas hårt av Jasaffären”
Publicerad i dag 00:50
Utred Sveriges roll. Den av korruptionsanklagelser omgärdade Jasaffären innebar att Sydafrika ”inte hade råd” att ge vård till miljoner hivsmittade. För varje krona som satsas på hiv/aidsbehandling går 7:60 kronor till betalning för vapenaffärerna. Jasaffären måste granskas politiskt, etiskt och juridiskt, skriver ärkebiskop emeritus Desmond Tutu med flera.
Försäljningen av Jas Gripen till Sydafrika 1999 har omgärdats av mutanklagelser. Nya avslöjanden av högst otillbörliga, kanske även korrupta uppgörelser, mellan svenska organisationer och sydafrikanska politiker kastar ännu en skugga över Sveriges roll i den korrupta Jas Gripen-försäljningen. Det är av största vikt att Sveriges roll i vapenaffären utreds och att åtal väcks om brott kan styrkas….
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English translation: (google trans. plus my corrections)
Investigate the role of Sweden.
The corruption allegations surrounded Jas-affären (JAS Affair- linked to the Arms Deal) meant that South Africa “could not afford” to provide health care to millions of people with HIV. For every Swedish Kronor (SEK) spent on HIV / AIDS treatment SEK 7.60 is used to pay for the arms deal.
The Jas-affären should be examined politically, ethically and legally, writes Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu and others.
Sales of the Jas-Gripen to South Africa 1999 has been surrounded by rumours of bribery. New revelations of highly unfair, perhaps even corrupt dealings between Swedish organizations and South African politician, casts yet another shadow over Sweden’s role in the corrupt Jas Gripen sales.
It is of paramount importance to Sweden’s role in the arms deal be investigated and of a subsequent prosecution if such a crime can be proved.
South Africa bought weapons and munitions that the country did not need for 66 billion according to recent estimates, where the Jas-Gripen was the single largest item of expenditure. Equipment that today is hardly used. This occurred during the same time period as the South African government indicated that it could not afford to provide the nearly six million South Africans sick with HIV / AIDS with antiretroviral drugs and healthcare.
Together with British BAE Systems and with the active support of the then (Consevative govt, under Carl Bildt) Swedish government, Saab was involved in the most corrupt deal, current JAS Gripen and a British training aircraft. British police claim that 1.5 billion was paid in bribes just in the contract.
After nearly a decade of denials admitted Saab last year that the South African defense minister’s closest political advisers receive 24 million Swedish kronor.
Sweden has a proud history of having supported the fight against apartheid, one of modern history’s most important contributions to human rights.
The Swedish government’s export drive in support of the JAS Gripen sale is the largest export initiative so far in Sweden. The then opposition, now in government, gave the deal their full support.
But from the beginning we opposed the deal – churches, unions and NGOs, both in Sweden and in South Africa.
We found that the socio-economic cost of a country that has just risen after 350 years of racial and economic oppression was too heavy to carry. South Africa was not facing a military threat, then or now, and many of the aircraft are today almost unused.
We also warned early of the dangers of corruption.
Experience shows that bribery is common in the arms deals.
In surveys from 2005, from the global network against corruption, Transparency International, also noted that the arms trade accounts for about 40 percent of all corruption in world trade.
The massive corruption in the arms deal, and the attempts to hide it, have undermined South Africa’s young democracy and the ANC as a party.
Even the current president (JZ) has been accused of 783 cases of corruption and fraud in connection with transactions.
Allegations which were written off in dubious ways.
The socio-economic conditions of the country’s poor have also weakened. Nearly 30 percent of the population is unemployed.
The money was put on arms purchases could be used to annually generate 100,000 new entry-level jobs in ten years, and been able to finance the construction of two million homes.
For every Swedish Kr (SEK) that is currently used to combat HIV / AIDS is equivalent to SEK 7.60 on weapons purchases. Studies from the Harvard School of Public Health shows that in 2000-2005 was 365,000 lives have been saved.
Mark Heywood of the Organization of HIV infected Rights, TAC, indicating that three million people have died in vain, partly because of the weapons business.
The South African Parliament and the judiciary’s independence was undermined when they became tools of the ruling party’s efforts to stop independent investigations.
Two of the nation’s leading anti-corruption bodies were not functioning as it should.
South Africa’s Vice President has confirmed that the government and ANC permeated by corruption at all levels. The arms deals ANC lost its moral compass and rainbow South Africa lost its luster.
The Swedish corruption in the deal was huge and did great damage.
According to the investigations were “open” bribes – as gifts and so-called counter-trade – to a range of organizations with close links to the ANC during procurement.
Through a complex system of front companies in tax havens paid “hidden” bribes from Saab / BAE to middlemen, leading politicians and military officers, and the ANC as a party.
After extensive investigations in the U.S. and the UK was fined BAE in connection with Jas Gripen sales totaling $ 475 million by the U.S. government.
The company was convicted of corruption and illicit commissions regarding a variety of arrangements, including in South Africa, and for having lied to U.S. authorities.
But the judgment also meant a settlement in which all involved escaped publicity and liability.
The actual arms out in a legal vacuum which involved companies, negotiators and politicians almost never brought to justice.
Saab has not yet been examined thoroughly.
If Sweden as a country truly committed to human rights globally, it is crucial that the Jas Gripen deal scrutinized fully by the judicial authorities.
Involved companies and individuals must be held accountable.
In addition, the entire Swedish arms exports subject to a comprehensive review.
Unless this happens, the global arms trade to continue to make the world less democratic, more corrupt, and, ironically, a more unsafe place for us all to live in.
(p.s. translation is verbatim!)
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