FORMER minister Sydney Mufamadi says the State Security Agency (SSA) was allegedly abused by former president Jacob Zuma to fight political factional battles in the African National Congress (ANC), including targeting his then deputy Cyril Ramaphosa.
Mufamadi, who testified to the State Capture Commission in his capacity as former chairperson of the High-Level Review Panel into the SSA, also said Zuma benefitted from millions of rands unlawfully paid to him by ‘top secret intelligence’ units during his tenure as head of state between 2009 and 2018.
“During the period under review, there was disregard for the Constitution of the republic, policy and other prescripts. Part of the evidence was indicating that the civilian intelligence was used as a private resource to serve political interest of a particular individual,” said Mufamadi, referring to Zuma.
“The special operations unit was a law unto itself, that is relative to the management structures of the SSA because they were following the reporting line, from what we were told,” he said.
Detailing other findings of the high-level panel review, Mufamadi also alleged that SSA’s Project Justice was used to bribe judges to rule in favour of Zuma.
Mufamadi said this project involved recruiting and handling sources in the judiciary in order to influence the outcome of cases against President Zuma.
He said the project was launched in the 2015-2016 financial year with a budget of R24m.
He said one of the largest amounts issued for this project was one of R20 million given to a media agency, Apricot, apparently for “services rendered” for eight months
Mufamadi also testified about SSA’s Project Wave, launched by the SSA to offer the former president positive coverage in the media.
He said this involved infiltrating and influencing the media at home and abroad in order to counter bad publicity for the country and the then President.
Mufamadi said during the 2016 ANC January 8 Statement in Rustenburg in the North West, the unit “initiated 3 countering operations to impede the distribution of CR17 regalia, impede transportation system of dissident groups from [Gauteng Province]”.
He also told the commission the panel also received information that the SSA established special operations that had nothing to do with its mandate.
He said one of those operations involved providing VIP security to people who were not supposed to receive state protection.
“You had people such as the former chairperson of the board of SAA, Dudu Myeni, the former National Director of Public Prosecutions Shaun Abrahams, the ANC Youth League President Collin Maine and, the former acting Head of the Hawks Yolisa Matakata who benefitted from such protection. The SAPS was not able to tell us if there were threat analysis that justification of projection for these people,” he added.
Mufamadi led the High-Level Review Panel into the SSA, established by Ramaphosa in 2018.
(SOURCE: INSIDE POLITICS)
