National Police Commissioner, General Fannie Masemola speaks during the quarterly crime statistics briefing held at the GCIS in Pretoria, 19 August 2022. Picture: Neil McCartney / The Citizen
Despite being South Africa’s top cop, General Fannie Masemola does not have the security clearance he needs.
Masemola was appointed as police commissioner in 2022.
According to News24, the country’s most senior police official was last vetted in 2014. The security clearance he received at the time expired in 2019.
The report states that Masemola tried to get his police clearance in 2019 but it wasn’t successful because he has debt.
“He did try to get his clearance, but the vetting process was stalled. It was stalled because he failed to explain what he was doing to deal with his debts. The status of one’s finances plays a huge role when one is being vetted,” a senior police officer told the publication.
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Senior police officials cannot have problems with debt due to the risk of them becoming susceptible to criminals offering money in exchange for favours.
This means that Masemola has been working for four years without a security clearance certificate, which is vital for the police commissioner to do his job.
It also means that Masemola should not be given information about high-level police operations.
One of those operations is how the country’s police plans to tackle the EFF’s national shutdown on Monday.
“It means he should not be given access to confidential, classified, and top secret documents and information. It means he can’t have access to operational plans like the EFF’s coming shutdown on Monday. How does he brief the National Security Council if he does not have a security clearance? How can this man oversee a budget running into billions without a security clearance?”
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