Johannesburg, April 21 (IANS): The probe into a controversial arms deal has found no evidence that there were any improper motives in the deal, South African President Jacob Zuma said on Thursday.

"There was also no basis whatsoever for disbelieving the evidence submitted by the members of the Inter-Ministerial Committee in this regard," Xinhua news agency reported quoting Zuma.

The Commission of Inquiry concluded that there was no room for it to draw adverse inferences, inconsistent with the direct, credible evidence presented to it, in respect of all material aspects of the Terms of Reference, Zuma said.

He was speaking on the release of the report of the Commission of Inquiry into allegations of fraud, corruption, impropriety or irregularity in the Strategic Defence Procurement Package.

Zuma has been haunted by the Strategic Defence Procurement Package, known as the arms deal, for years. He set up a commission in 2011 to investigate the multi-billion-rand arms deal of the late 1990s, when Thabo Mbeki was deputy president and later president.

The arms deal, initially estimated to cost about $3 million (43 million rands) , is believed to have escalated to billions of dollars now to buy military equipment from Europe.