President Cyril Ramaphosa didn’t appoint a minister for the intelligence services when he announced the national cabinet last week.
In a country with some of the highest levels of homicide, rape, crimes against children, house robbery and human trafficking in the world, this omission – albeit temporary, assuming he is still applying his mind – is an important one.
Security and intelligence agencies in any country are generally responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety and foreign policy objectives. All three intelligence agencies – the South African Police Services Crime Intelligence Division (SAPS-CI), State Security Agency (SSA), or the Defence Intelligence Division of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF-DI) have dismal records of not only failing in the detection and giving early warning of planned security risks, the three have for the past fifteen years been involved in financial scandals, criminality and party-political factional behaviour that compromised their capacity to execute their mandates.
The report of a high-level panel established by Ramaphosa in 2018 to probe the intelligence services found that there had ‘’been a serious politicization and factionalization of the intelligence community over the [period under former president Jacob Zuma], based on factions in the ruling party, resulting in an almost complete disregard for the Constitution, policy, legislation and other prescripts, and turning our civilian intelligence community into a private resource to serve the political and personal interests of [Zuma’s faction]’’. Ethically compromised ministers ranged from Siyabonga Cwele, David Mahlobo, Bongani Bongo to Ayanda Dlodlo.
In the wake of thi report, President Ramaphosa’s first attempt at reforming the whole intelligence infrastructure was to abolish the ministry and locate the intelligence function under a minister in the presidency, first being the incompetent Mondli Gungubele, who was followed by Zizi Kodwa, who was recently arrested on charges of corruption.
The July 2021 violent riots that left 350 people dead – with few arrests and no single conviction – are evidence that Ramaphosa’s reforms were not successful. An expert panel appointed by Ramaphosa to enquire into the mass violence established that the riots were a culmination of months of an overt, large-scale social media campaign to mobilize people for an insurrection.
The N3 highway between Durban and Mooiriver had been the site of regular burning of trucks and blockades. The imprisonment of Zuma on conviction of contempt of court provided the spark that set the violence in motion.
Yet there is no evidence that any of the Intelligence Services, the South African Police Services: Crime Intelligence Division (SAPS-CI), was able to detect the serious security risk this campaign posed. Alarmingly, Pres Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs the National Security Council of ministers in the security cluster (ministers of intelligence, police, and defence), had not convened this body in the previous four months, according to evidence. It is scandalous that the riots appear to have caught the cabinet by surprise.
Intelligence is supposed to empower SAPS’s Hawks, the South African Revenue Service and Home Affairs to devise proactive responses to crime by enabling them to identify and understand criminal groups operating in their line of responsibility. Once criminal syndicates are identified and put under surveillance, these law enforcement agencies may begin to assess current trends in crime to forecast and make appropriate interventions to frustrate the progression of these trends to the actual commission of crimes.
Since being hollowed out by an agent of state capture Richard Mdluli, SAPS’s crime intelligence division seems to have completely lost its capacity to support Hawks investigations, surveillance operations and the prosecution of cases. With a few exceptions, the Hawks themselves are infamously incapable of detecting crimes against the state, especially political corruption and related assassinations, kidnappings and extortions.
There are many reported cases of crime and corruption which can be regarded as low-hanging fruit and can be finalized and prosecuted with ease. Public sector corruption usually has a deep paper trail. Investigative journalists and the Special Investigative Unit have dug into the paper trail and exposed the criminals involved – implicating cabinet ministers and MECs – while crime intelligence seems to be blissfully sleeping on the job. In the process, few of these cases are ever put on the court roll by the NPA, if any.
Ramaphosa has reneged on his promise to order a lifestyle audit in respect of members of his executive. This failure of leadership cannot give confidence to crime intelligence to act proactively to identify the sources of the wealth of high-ranking politicians who live beyond their means and flaunt their wealth. Had the division been sufficiently transformed after Ramaphosa’s reforms, perhaps Babita Diokaran would still be alive today.
I am not holding my breath for him to move with the required resoluteness to cleanse the intelligence agencies. When I was the mayor of the City of Johannesburg I handed him a dossier of 82 acts of serious criminality that had been investigated by our forensic division for him to ensure that our compromised SAPS and the National Prosecuting Authority processed its contents.
I have not heard from him since.
Weak intelligence agencies leave South Africans unsafe
President Cyril Ramaphosa didn’t appoint a minister for the intelligence services when he announced the national cabinet last week.
In a country with some of the highest levels of homicide, rape, crimes against children, house robbery and human trafficking in the world, this omission – albeit temporary, assuming he is still applying his mind – is an important one.
Security and intelligence agencies in any country are generally responsible for the collection, analysis, and exploitation of information in support of law enforcement, national security, military, public safety and foreign policy objectives. All three intelligence agencies – the South African Police Services Crime Intelligence Division (SAPS-CI), State Security Agency (SSA), or the Defence Intelligence Division of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF-DI) have dismal records of not only failing in the detection and giving early warning of planned security risks, the three have for the past fifteen years been involved in financial scandals, criminality and party-political factional behaviour that compromised their capacity to execute their mandates.
The report of a high-level panel established by Ramaphosa in 2018 to probe the intelligence services found that there had ‘’been a serious politicization and factionalization of the intelligence community over the [period under former president Jacob Zuma], based on factions in the ruling party, resulting in an almost complete disregard for the Constitution, policy, legislation and other prescripts, and turning our civilian intelligence community into a private resource to serve the political and personal interests of [Zuma’s faction]’’. Ethically compromised ministers ranged from Siyabonga Cwele, David Mahlobo, Bongani Bongo to Ayanda Dlodlo.
In the wake of thi report, President Ramaphosa’s first attempt at reforming the whole intelligence infrastructure was to abolish the ministry and locate the intelligence function under a minister in the presidency, first being the incompetent Mondli Gungubele, who was followed by Zizi Kodwa, who was recently arrested on charges of corruption.
The July 2021 violent riots that left 350 people dead – with few arrests and no single conviction – are evidence that Ramaphosa’s reforms were not successful. An expert panel appointed by Ramaphosa to enquire into the mass violence established that the riots were a culmination of months of an overt, large-scale social media campaign to mobilize people for an insurrection.
The N3 highway between Durban and Mooiriver had been the site of regular burning of trucks and blockades. The imprisonment of Zuma on conviction of contempt of court provided the spark that set the violence in motion.
Yet there is no evidence that any of the Intelligence Services, the South African Police Services: Crime Intelligence Division (SAPS-CI), was able to detect the serious security risk this campaign posed. Alarmingly, Pres Cyril Ramaphosa, who chairs the National Security Council of ministers in the security cluster (ministers of intelligence, police, and defence), had not convened this body in the previous four months, according to evidence. It is scandalous that the riots appear to have caught the cabinet by surprise.
Intelligence is supposed to empower SAPS’s Hawks, the South African Revenue Service and Home Affairs to devise proactive responses to crime by enabling them to identify and understand criminal groups operating in their line of responsibility. Once criminal syndicates are identified and put under surveillance, these law enforcement agencies may begin to assess current trends in crime to forecast and make appropriate interventions to frustrate the progression of these trends to the actual commission of crimes.
Since being hollowed out by an agent of state capture Richard Mdluli, SAPS’s crime intelligence division seems to have completely lost its capacity to support Hawks investigations, surveillance operations and the prosecution of cases. With a few exceptions, the Hawks themselves are infamously incapable of detecting crimes against the state, especially political corruption and related assassinations, kidnappings and extortions.
There are many reported cases of crime and corruption which can be regarded as low-hanging fruit and can be finalized and prosecuted with ease. Public sector corruption usually has a deep paper trail. Investigative journalists and the Special Investigative Unit have dug into the paper trail and exposed the criminals involved – implicating cabinet ministers and MECs – while crime intelligence seems to be blissfully sleeping on the job. In the process, few of these cases are ever put on the court roll by the NPA, if any.
Ramaphosa has reneged on his promise to order a lifestyle audit in respect of members of his executive. This failure of leadership cannot give confidence to crime intelligence to act proactively to identify the sources of the wealth of high-ranking politicians who live beyond their means and flaunt their wealth. Had the division been sufficiently transformed after Ramaphosa’s reforms, perhaps Babita Diokaran would still be alive today.
I am not holding my breath for him to move with the required resoluteness to cleanse the intelligence agencies. When I was the mayor of the City of Johannesburg I handed him a dossier of 82 acts of serious criminality that had been investigated by our forensic division for him to ensure that our compromised SAPS and the National Prosecuting Authority processed its contents.
I have not heard from him since.