By: Natasha Archary
The presidency releasing the Lady R summary report has raised eyebrows within the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ActionSA.
Both parties say the independent panel that was appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa to probe the allegations that weapons had been loaded onto the Russian vessel, had performed a limited scope during the investigation.
Describing the process as a whitewashing exercise, the DA and ActionSA are demanding that the full report be released, however, Ramaphosa says this will not happen.
The President says due to the classified nature of the evidence that informed the report, government will not publicly engage any further on the substance of the report.
According to the independent panel, which was chaired by Judge PMD Mojapelo, there was no evidence that weapons had been loaded onto Lady R.
What the investigation did find was that “equipment” was offloaded at the port in Simonstown between 06 and 09 December.
The report further says that the cargo that was offloaded was sanctioned in 2018, but due to Covid-19, delivery was delayed.
“The panel established that the goods that were delivered by the Lady R in Simonstown were equipment for the SANDF, which it had requested, had been ordered by Armscor and waited for since 2018.
The equipment was ordered from a company based in the UAE, they were long overdue.
The manufacturing, packaging and delivery of the equipment was delayed amongst others, by the outbreaks of Covid-19 and of the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Despite some rumours that some equipment or arms were loaded on the Lady R, the panel found no evidence to substantiate those claims. Available evidence only confirmed the offloading and that there was nothing loaded.”
Also read: WATCH: Another gas explosion shakes Braam
We value your feedback:
[vfb id=97]
