So deep is the corruption, criminality and incompetence in South Africa’s intelligence agencies — crime, military, state security and foreign — that they must be closed down, audited and reconstituted with entirely new people.
The intelligence agencies are so corrupt, so criminal and so ineffective that they are a danger to the safety of law-abiding citizens and threaten the rule of law and the stability of the state itself. They are a waste of scarce public resources.
They are liabilities to South Africa’s national security. There is little public confidence in the intelligence services, their leadership or the oversight institutions that are supposed to hold them accountable.
There is no possibility that the intelligence agencies can be saved, cleaned up or repurposed in their current form — they need to be closed, and new structures set up from new. Current employees who want to rejoin must then be thoroughly investigated, audited and vetted before being taken on board. There have to be criminal investigations and prosecutions for rogue behaviour, and assets illegally transferred to intelligence operatives must be seized. Critically, there has to be a review of all the assets of the intelligence agencies.
If necessary, someone respected from outside South Africa could be seconded to lead a restructuring of the intelligence agencies, to ensure absolute independence, neutrality and competence. If necessary, someone respected from outside South Africa could be seconded to lead a restructuring of the intelligence agencies, to ensure absolute independence, neutrality and competence.
If necessary, someone respected from outside South Africa could be seconded to lead a restructuring of the intelligence agencies, to ensure absolute independence, neutrality and competence.
The rot started when the ANC deployed cadres to lead them. Then they were used by different political factions in the ANC to pursue party factional battles and silence civil society, media and opposition critics.
During the state capture period, these agencies were used for personal self-enrichment, criminal activities and to protect former president Jacob Zuma, according to the Zondo commission. The commission reported that R9bn was looted from the intelligence agencies over the nine years of the Zuma presidency.
A few years ago, a high-level review panel into the State Security Agency chaired by Sydney Mufamadi revealed that billions were abused to allegedly bankroll Zuma, and recruit and fund police investigators and prosecutors not to prosecute him over corruption allegations, and recruit and fund corrupt members of the judiciary to secure favourable court outcomes for the former president.
Auditor-general financial audits of intelligence agencies have year after year flagged irregular and wasteful spending, inadequate internal financial controls and lack of financial accountability.
Worse, the inspector-general of intelligence, which is supposed to provide independent oversight of South Africa’s intelligence services, was also hollowed out by the ANC, which deployed cadres who were partisan to the leadership faction of the party and looked the other way in the face of looting, the abuse of the agencies to intimidate ANC and state critics, or used the agencies to support political factions in the ANC.
South Africa’s agencies are typical African failed state agencies, such as in Zimbabwe, where agents spend most of their time sourcing gossip on ruling party critics, opposition leaders, civil society and the media in shebeens. They spread disinformation, spin conspiracy tales of plots to “overthrow” the state, and accuse opponents of being in the pay of “white monopoly capital” and “foreign powers”.
Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence has most of the time been equally incompetent, hard of hearing and useless.
The weakness in South Africa’s electoral system, whereby party leaders hand-pick candidates for parliament, has meant that MPs are answerable to the party leadership, not to ordinary citizens. This, combined with the ANC’s previous majority, has meant that ANC party bosses selected pliant MPs to parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence, where, rather than hold the rogue intelligence services to account, they were answerable to ANC leaders.
President Cyril Ramaphosa this week suspended the inspector-general of intelligence (IG), Imtiaz Fazel, with immediate effect after repeated complaints of inaction by citizens, civil society groups and opposition members. The IG is supposed to provide independent oversight of South Africa’s intelligence services. Many occupants of the position have failed spectacularly to provide effective oversight over the rogue intelligence services.
New iterations of intelligence agencies must use ensure that appointments are solely on merit, not based on cadre deployment, political affiliation or colour. Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence must be restructured to make it compulsory that only members of opposition parties chair it, that governing parties cannot have more than 50% of the committee’s membership, and that the activities of the committee are subject to judicial oversight.
The office of the IG must also be restructured. The appointment process must become independent, transparent and merit-based. No current or former politician or civil servant or member of the security, intelligence services, the police or the military, must ever be appointed to the position of inspector-general of intelligence. There have to be effective whistleblowing mechanisms, protection for whistleblowers, and deadlines to resolve complaints.
The appointment of inspectors general of intelligence must be made through public hearings, and the selection must be overseen by an independent panel including the judiciary, civil society and a diverse range of parliamentarians. A cabinet minister must not chair the appointment panel. In fact, no cabinet minister should sit on any appointment panel to select an inspector-general of intelligence.
New intelligence services must be professionalised, the principle of civilian, democratic and judicial oversight must be introduced, and financial accountability must be strictly enforced.
Gumede is founder of the Democracy Works Foundation and author of ‘Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times’ (Tafelberg)
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