South Africa's security cluster is in the spotlight amid allegations of infighting and misconduct, says Bosa leader Mmusi Maimane.
Build One South Africa (Bosa) leader Mmusi Maimane has blamed the ANC for the country’s problems in intelligence gathering.
This comes after President Cyril Ramaphosa suspended the inspector general of intelligence, Imtiaz Fazel, with immediate effect on Wednesday night.
Presidency spokesperson, Vincent Magwenya said there is a complaint about Fazel’s conduct, which led to Ramaphosa’s decision.
“President Cyril Ramaphosa has suspended the inspector-general of intelligence, Mr Imtiaz Fazel, pending a decision in an investigation by Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) into the inspector-general’s conduct.”
“The JSCI has informed President Ramaphosa that it has received a complaint on the conduct of the inspector-general and that the committee will investigate in line with sections 7(4) and 7(5) of the Intelligence Services Act (Act 40 of 1994),” said Magwenya.
Maimane slams ANC
Speaking to The Citizen on Thursday, Maimane said politicians have tampered with the state’s intelligence services.
“The utilisation of intelligence for political reasons has been the chronic undermining of the service by the ANC.”
“The ANC has failed to implement the recommendation of the professionalisation of intelligence post the enquiry by former minister Mofumadi. Now is the time we bring change to change the current leadership and appoint ethical generals. The President must brief the committee on the extent of the complaint and findings. Our country has been failed by poor leadership and decisions by the government,” he said.
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Problems in SA’s security cluster
Fazel’s suspension comes after the suspended national deputy police commissioner, Lieutenant General Shadrack Sibiya, told parliament this week that crime intelligence in South Africa is not as strong as it should be.
Parliament had also heard how this unit has abused the funding they have been given for intelligence gathering.
The police have their own crime intelligence unit, while state security also has its own intelligence-gathering operations.
Political analyst weighs in
Political analyst Dirk Kotze agrees that both state security and the police’s crime intelligence have been crippled by political interference.
“Politics has absolutely played a role in the breaking of intelligence, especially the two components, which are state security and crime intelligence. These two have been very much influenced, especially during the time of former president Jacob Zuma.”
“When he appointed people who were close to him, they started to use intelligence in the ANC’s internal dynamics, so it became highly politicised. The same happened with crime intelligence, especially during the time of Richard Mdluli,” he said.
Kotze believes that intelligence was organised before 1994.
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He said another dynamic is that funds for intelligence gathering are not audited and thus can be abused by officials.
“They are not audited by the Auditor General like other departments; this is where the office of the inspector general comes in. All these other offices must account to the inspector general, and auditing takes place outside the normal processes of auditing.”
“So, during the Zuma era, police intelligence had secret funds worth millions, even maybe billions, and that was used and abused for all sorts of reasons, and this was part of the process of state capture,” he said.
The Institute for Security Studies (ISS) has also blamed irregular appointments, misappropriation of funds and the use of state resources for factional battles for problems in the country’s crime intelligence.
Capacity of SA’s state security agency
On Thursday, the minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni was questioned about the capacity of the country’s state security agency, but did not elaborate on the strengths or weaknesses of the country’s intelligence-gathering operations.
Ramaphosa has taken the intelligence department into the office of the presidency following the July unrest of 2021. These riots led to the deaths of dozens of people.
They occurred just after former president Jacob Zuma was arrested for disobeying an order from the Constitutional Court.
Ntshvheni is now the minister responsible for this department.
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