Madam Speaker, I have a number of matters that I wish to respond to, and I will try to be very brief. First of all, with regard to the statement of hon Koornhof, I would hope that members of the House take serious account of that statement. It is in the interest of our country to reflect on what he has suggested regarding the question of defence of our country.
The second issue that I would like to deal with relates to the member's statement by hon Trent on the issue of the arms deal. I think it is probably relevant that the National Assembly and even Parliament take a position on this question.
The issue was raised some time ago. Government placed the matter in the hands of the democracy-supporting institutions to investigate the question of the alleged corruption in the arms deal. That exercise produced a report which was ultimately filed with your office, Madam Speaker. That report found that in the primary contracts government had not committed anything that was outside of the law. There was an indication that there were areas in the secondary contracts that needed further investigation.
The statement made by hon Trent seems to suggest that that report was fallacious. This government and this Parliament have not been presented with any evidence other than what has been available to the government on the basis of which the House can disprove the feeling that the allegations of corruption are disinformation or that the findings were correct.
An allegation was made by a newspaper! Any newspaper writes anything about anybody. A day later the company that is alleged to have given the President of South Africa R30 million issued a statement in its home country denying that it ever paid that amount of money to any South African. This company is on record as having issued such a statement.
Where is the evidence that can actually be tested in our courts? To continue to make these allegations against the President of our country and failing to place before our courts evidence to back up these allegations undermine the standing of this country internationally and it makes mockery of this very Sitting.
The documents which hon Trent refers to were made available. We made those documents public. We opened up the Department of Defence for investigators to will come and take a look at the documents. They couldn't take them away, but they could examine any document.
We must not make a joke of the governance of this country and of this Parliament in this way.
Order! Hon Minister, actually your time has expired.
No, I have one more important point to deal with. Madam Speaker, some of my colleagues are not here.
Please deal with the one more point in two minutes.
Thank you. Hon Simmons, we must be honest to history, because if we misrepresent history we will mislead young people and we will make a nonsense of our country.
The United Democratic Front achieved everything it was set up to achieve. We set up the United Democratic Front to oppose what the National Party then called "the new deal". It was to oppose the tricameral Parliament and the black local authorities. It was to call for the release of prisoners, the return of exiles and the unbanning of the banned and to negotiate a settlement. All of that, the United Democratic Front achieved. The UDF was set up to achieve that and no more. You must go and look at the declaration of that organisation.
Madam Speaker, may I ask the hon Minister of Defence a question?
You want to ask him a question? No, hon member, we are not dealing with questions here.
I am available to answer his question even outside.
We can go right now, hon Minister.