SA govt denies US claims of supplying weapons to Russia, clarifies inquiry establishment

The South African government has categorically denied claims by the United States that it supplied weapons to Russia for its conflict in Ukraine, despite announcing the establishment of an independent inquiry to investigate the allegations just a day earlier.

Russia-Ukraine war

Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni on Friday said that the government had no knowledge of weapons being loaded onto a Russian vessel that docked at the Simon’s Town naval base in Cape Town in December last year.

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Ntshavheni insisted that government’s National Conventional Arms Control Committee (NCACC), which deals with the regulation and control of the trade in conventional arms, did not approve the sale of weapons to Russia.

“There is no official authorisation for weapons to be sold to Russia and Ukraine. Whether weapons were loaded or not; that’s another matter. There is no authorisation, and if the weapons were loaded in the vessel, the inquiry will determine that.

“And those people, who’ve done that, will then face the consequences. But where we are, there was no authorisation,” she said in an interview with Radio 702.

Establishment of inquiry

Ntshavheni said the purpose of the inquiry into the allegations, which will be led by a retired judge, will be to determine whether the arms deal occurred without the government’s knowledge.

“All those things are the matters that are going to be determined in the inquiry because there were multiple set of players like the defence and the South African Revenue Service.”

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The minister also said South Africa will not allow itself to be bullied by the US, even if it threatens to cancel bilateral trade between the two countries through the African Growth and Opportunities Act (Agoa), from which SA benefits around R400 billion annually in trade.

“We can’t be bullied, we’re a sovereign state… we have decided that we are neutral [when it comes to the war in Ukraine], we cannot be bullied and the US cannot choose our friends,” she said.

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At the same time, Minister of Communications and Digital Technologies Mondli Gungubele – who chairs the NCACC – also denied that the committee gave authorisation for weapons to be sold to Russia.

“We, who are appointed by the president to manage the trading of arms, as far as our records are concerned, we did not authorise anything in the direction of that country,” said Gungubele.

SA summons US ambassador

Meanwhile, the South African government announced on Friday that it will summon the US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, in response to his explosive claims about the alleged weapons sale to Russia.

Taking to Twitter, the spokesperson for the Department of International Relations and Cooperation (Dirco), Clayson Monyela said that Dirco would be issuing a démarche to Brigety in response to his recent claims.

A démarche is a formal diplomatic communication in which a government expresses its official position or displeasure on a particular matter to an appropriate official in another government.

Monyela added that Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor will also be speaking with her US counterpart, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, later in the afternoon to address the issue further.

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