Amnesty Hearings — Cape Town — 2000-03-13

GEORGE BIZOS: Who was the Chairman whilst  steps were being contemplated against Bishop Tutu and we are going to say that on the facts, further against his son?

CHAIRPERSON: We are  talking about the incident in which a foetus, a monkey foetus was hung or placed on the verandah, yes, that incident.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson, my evidence was led back then that we would or that I regarded it as a joke, in the matter of Tutu and I regarded it as something that I did not have to apply for amnesty for, but with regard to Mr Tutu's son, I do not know what Mr Bizos refers to.

CHAIRPERSON: I think the question was whether he required it a - the question, and it's got nothing to implicate you at all, the question was purely, who was the Chairman at the time of that incident?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I think it was also Gen Webb.

GEORGE BIZOS: Now you apply for amnesty for the Evans and the Omar attempted murders?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairperson, I know during the early years there was a dispute with regard to what Gen Webb thought that he was authorised and was not authorised to do.  I don't know what he applied for specifically.

GEORGE BIZOS: On the evidence that we have, given by Gen Webb in the Webster inquest, he denies that he authorised Gavin Evans and the Omar attempted murders.  Now if that evidence is correct and if your other evidence is correct that nothing could happen before the Chairman authorised it, then these two were unauthorised.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: Chairman, there was no project which I undertook which I had undertaken on my own.  In my structure, a year beforehand budgets were done.  Next year's budget is done this year and then projects are attached to whatever budget is needed.  If one arrives at a quarter then there are submissions made to the Chairperson and then those projects during that quarter are attached to another budget and if the project is displaced then we would once again submit it to the Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry Mr Bizos, if I may just intervene, just before it slips my mind again.  Just arising out of what you said, so if you had an operation that involved the assassination of a person, let's say X.  It's decided that X be assassinated by waiting for him on the corner and when he drives past you're going to shoot a bullet through his head.  Now do you need a budget for that sort of operation?  I mean what you're going to - if one of the operatives who is in the employ of the CCB is used, let's say somebody who is getting a monthly salary, what are you going to budget for?  Six rounds of bullets or something, you know, I'm just asking because the impression I got was that every operation was so structured and that had to come on the budget and be approved and signed etc. but surely there were some that didn't require a budget?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: That was specifically the case.  I do not want to say by this that persons at ground level could not make any mistakes, but what happened in reality, Chairperson, is that with sensitive operations there was always a problem with the Auditor General because it was said that it was a fruitless expense, people pretend that they do not work for the State but in reality they are still connected to the State and our role was to do things that could not be connected to the State and that factual criticism was put into a financial plan that was authorised to the Attorney General and this caused that funds were written off before they were used and the method of writing it of was that when one says that the day before X, Y and Z was to be done, there had to be a plan and if it was accepted, it was signed and that is then the budget for that specific operation and this includes hotel cots, petrol costs and so forth.

CHAIRPERSON: So would the Auditor General have received a document saying: " To:  Murder of Mr Dullah Omar, travel expenses etc etc," would it be set out like that, or would it be more covert?

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: It was within a covert administrative system on the one side.  There was a financial file where it was not as blatantly explained, where the file would have a name and only the specific persons involved with it put it in writing and on the other side, the operational plan was placed in writing so the two were kept apart.  It did happen, as I said previously, where there were instances where actions had taken place quicker and then it was possibly a telephonic discussion between myself and the Chairperson, or I met with him quickly and he said:  "Continue, you may authorise it" and on that bases I then signed it myself, but that was the exception to the rule.  As a rule it had to be signed by the Chairperson himself.  Under oath on a previous occasion I have said that there were two things that were never delegated to us.  The one was the authorisation for an operation and the other was finances because this comes from the formal State structures.

MR LAX: Sorry, just while we're on this.  I'm just a little puzzled how you could have a budget for things you hadn't even contemplated at the time you drew up your budget.  It's clear from all these documents that for example some of these operations you did within a year, long before you had a chance to even create a budget for them, so how, you know, it's not a question of creating a budget say for operation IP, or a budget for operation whatever, some of these things happened very quickly.  Firearms were organised, money was arranged, vast sums of money were arranged at very short notice.  There could not have been budgets for those things because they weren't even contemplated at the time.

PIETER JOHANN VERSTER: I can assure you Chairperson, that it was done in this manner.  The covert funds of the army had to be submitted in Parliament.  There were Parliamentary committees for those instances and that had to be done in the previous year, otherwise we did not have money.  It had to work in a State structure, so in the development of a region, plans were formulated that were based on enemy actions and from those plans we say person X, Y, Z would need four cars and five persons and would go to Cape Town five times or ten times.  That is just a budget.  That budget is manipulated later between this person who will work here and another person who will work there, but that was within the region, it is authorised to that region and I would like to add that with the breaking up or disbanding of the BSB, this was done under General Geldenhuys, and on that retirement, we were edited completely.  No money had disappeared, there was nothing strange and for the then government it was a great problem to the government because the problem was that if we were audited properly on Treasury level and if everything was approved on Treasury level, that would mean that everything was indeed authorised and then money was then withdraw.

CHAIRPERSON: Mr Bizos.

MR LAX: Sorry.

CHAIRPERSON: Oh sorry, are you still busy.

MR LAX: Sorry, Chair.  I'm still not satisfied that we understand each other.  It's one thing to have a general budget, it's another thing to have project specific budgets.  You may well have had  a general budget for Zone 6, which entailed a whole range of contemplated activities, but we're talking about specific projects.  Gavin Evans, Minister Omar, Project Apie and others, the Early Learning Centre project.  Those things happened over a few months.  It's all very well that you got authority after the fact and therefore the expenditure was deemed to be proper.  Yes, there was an audit trail created and all that sort of thing, I understand all of that, but the impression you gave us when you began to talk about money was that each and every project was properly budgeted for.