Special Hearings — Chemical And Biological Warfare Hearings — 1998-06-08

MR CHASKALSON: It's a bit unfortunate that this all took place with the use of tax payers money.  Second question, you talked about a desire to find one or more substances which would not be traceable and which could be used to murder humans.  Would you say that this desire took place during the time of Doctor Goosen's management or during the time of Doctor Swanepoel's management and if during both, during which period was it greater?

DR VAN RENSBURG: The urgency was greater later on.  I can't say that that had anything to do with the Managing Directors, it was that later on we were bigger and stronger and more experienced and getting better at it.  When you say it's a desire, I must emphasise it was a requirement issued by what we used to euphemistically call the shareholders, that is the owners of the company which is the Surgeon-General's battalion.    It was their requirement that they issued.
 By and large there was certainly nobody, none of the research workers at the institute who wanted to do this work or who enjoyed doing it.  There was a lot conscience problems and some of the workers even needed counselling.

MR CHASKALSON: I'd like to return to this point but I would like to do it in a broader forum.  The financial abuse that you are talking about, that you have talked about, can you date that financial abuse?  Again I'm using the times and if I'm being unfair to use these times, please feel free to use your own time periods,  during the time that Daan Goosen was managing the facility or during the time that Doctor Swanepoel took over.

DR VAN RENSBURG: Infadel was very active checking on us when Doctor Daan Goosen was there.  The figures and the budget, the auditors have it all, you'll see the budget was minute compared to latter years.  It was probably the most efficient financial control I've ever experienced while Doctor Goosen was there.
 Somehow after Doctor Goosen was replaced they seemed to close down Infadel, Infadel disappeared.  I don't know what happened to it and we were never told, you don't ask.  And the control in my of thinking was not as good after that.  There was a lot of, as I've said before, expenditure on trivialities.  
 It went so far that Doctor Wynand Swanepoel walked into my office in August 1991 and asked me if I would approve a full time salary for him with all his motor car benefits and housing benefits and everything else in exchange for a few hours work a week because he said he was very busy with other companies and other things.  So I pointed out to him that was tantamount to theft, it was against company regulations and I certainly would not approve a full time salary and benefits for him.  
 At that time on with decisions like this we were expected to reach consensus as a directorate, so he had to win me over.  That was the incident that was the final straw as far as he was concerned, where he decided to get rid of me judging from his actions following that incident.

MR CHASKALSON: How did you come to leave the company?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Following - this incident occurred not long after Doctor Basson had confronted me about my liberal political beliefs.  Shortly after this Doctor Swanepoel immediately - I can tell you the date, it was the 26th of August, that he asked me about his salary, he immediately made arrangements to train what I knew would be my successor but we had a discussion, I was called into his office, we had a discussion on quality control and I pointed out some shortcomings.
 There had been a meeting or our Divisional Heads, the research heads.  These people are the real engine of the company, every company has a real productive core and the technical heads of each technical department, they a meeting and they had compiled a document that was extremely derogatory about the level of management.
 Now to get good laboratory practice certification as well as certification from the OECD you have to meet certain managerial standards.  And we were talking in general about this and I was making some suggestions and I still do not know why but he flew into a tantrum, screamed at least 20 minutes and when I tried to leave he screamed louder and told me to sit down.  He then told me to take my jacket, go home, I was on suspension.
 I sat at home for a week and then I got a letter for a disciplinary hearing.  For six hours I was subjected to a disciplinary hearing that only proved that I was an essential part of the company and that they shouldn't get rid of me.  He didn't like that, he wanted to fire me anyway.  So I suggested we talk about early retirement.  He wouldn't talk about it but he got rid of me anyway.  I managed to swing it to early retirement though.
 That was November 1991.  We had just privatised.  Doctor Swanepoel then created some fraudulent documents, him and his co-Directors, they all signed these fraudulent documents.  They lied to the auditors, they stole my four million cut that I would have got, three million or whatever which I certainly don't want, its dirty money but I don't feel that fraudsters should be encouraged.
 They kept me for a further eight months in the proverbial broom cupboard after being demoted, why I still don't know but I had to finish certain vital scientific tasks.  The only real unique contribution I ever made to that company was to upgrade the level of science to an international level.  
 We had big clients, household names that you all know that I can't mention because of the Confidentiality Clause.  These people needed research reports at a certain level.  I was the only one who could get them to that level and that was the only really unique contribution I made to that company.  Once they got rid of me I knew they wouldn't last anyway.  They didn't last for long.

MR CHASKALSON: I just want come back a little bit.  You had said at some point that you were in charge of the Animal Essex Committee.

DR VAN RENSBURG: That's right.

MR CHASKALSON: Can you explain what the involved?

DR VAN RENSBURG: It's a part of international laboratory animal science and good laboratory practice, that no researcher may decide to do a study and taken animals and carry on and do it without strict review by his piers, that is his fellow scientists or people who are specifically experienced in the field of Laboratory Animal Science.
 So we had a Committee that would look firstly at the purpose of the study.  If the purpose justified it we'd consider it further.  It had to meet a lot of criteria like not be repetitive and so on.  Then we would consider the methodology used and mostly we would try and reduce it to what we call a sub-clinical level, in other words the animal never really gets sick or dies.  You evaluate your result under the microscope or in the test tube.  That would be to reduce suffering in the animals. 
 And then of course very importantly we reduced the number of animals used to the minimum.  This is always - in other words any researchers project is vetted by experts to see that he is not abusing animals.

MR CHASKALSON: Did you have occasion to attend any of the experimentation to make certain that the correct procedures were followed?

DR VAN RENSBURG: Yes, indeed, we did monitor every project that was done.  It was a part of quality assurance but not the very toxic work.  This was done in the basement.  It was originally built as a quarantine section.  It was a high security section and the toxicologists and Doctor Immelmann had access.
 I tried very hard to get access, eventually they agreed to give me access because I said I can't go on in this job if I can't monitor the studies.  It was such a hassle every time to get access that I was only there two or three times but with their knowledge beforehand and which is not really a valid procedure.  These were for the,  studies of lethal toxins were done in this laboratory.