DA leader John Steenhuisen said on Tuesday his party will bring the Promotion of Access to Information Act in order to obtain the intelligence report State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo said she provided to the police crime intelligence before the outbreak of violence in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
This after Police Minister Bheki Cele said he did not receive a report from the State Security Minister, adding that if he had received the report aimed at assisting the government to react in time before the unrest happened, his signature would be on it as proof.
Steenhuisen said it was “outrageous” that acting Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said it was in the country’s interest to release the intelligence information collected by State Security.
“It is critical that South Africans know the Who, When and What of this catastrophic failure of our security cluster to protect citizens and property: Who knew upfront about the looting and unrest, when did they know it, and what did they then do about it,” said Steenhuisen.
“These questions apply to all in the security cluster, but specifically to President Cyril Ramaphosa, State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo, Police Minister Bheki Cele and Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.”
Section 46 of PAIA deals with the disclosure of a record of a public body that would reveal “a substantial contravention of, or failure to comply with, the law”, as well as instances where public interest in such a disclosure would outweigh any potential harm.
Steenhuisen said if Cele received intelligence on the planned looting and failed to act on it, he could be in contravention of the National Strategic Intelligence Act (NSIA), which states that the National Intelligence Agency “must supply (where necessary) intelligence relating to any such threat to the South African Police Service for the purposes of investigating any offence or alleged offence”.
“Minister Dlodlo should therefore publicly release the intelligence report(s) which she claims were made available to law enforcement, because such reports would likely reveal “evidence of a failure to comply with the law” by the SAPS. And this would most certainly be in the public interest,” he said.
“Furthermore, it is private citizens and business owners who bore the brunt of these attacks. If the intelligence reports reveal that they suffered these extensive losses due to a failure by SAPS to comply with the law, then they should have recourse to legal action against Bheki Cele and other SAPS officials.”
He added that the statement by Ntshaveni, that it is not in the country’s interest to reveal what intelligence, if any, the police had prior to the unrest is simply outrageous.
“Ours is a Constitutional democracy premised on the principles of openness and transparency, where citizens have the right to access the information they need to hold elected officials accountable for catastrophic failures like the ones our country recently witnessed,” said Steenhuisen.
“The DA has long called for a complete overhaul of the oversight mechanisms over our country’s security and intelligence bodies, as we have one of the most clandestine systems in the world. In the USA, for example, the CIA reports regularly and openly in Congressional hearings. Most opposition parties elsewhere have full access to security briefings. But here we don’t see financial statements, we have very little insight into budgets and these bodies don’t report to the Auditor-General.”
He said everyone knows that the country’s Security Cluster was compromised, and that the primary mandate seems to be the security of the ruling party and not the state.
“Long before the burning and looting started in KZN this was already on full display. When schools, trains and trucks were set alight in an ongoing campaign there was little to no response from the state. But when ANC factional battles need to be waged, the full might of the state’s intelligence is made available,” he said.
“If the ANC government had any intention of changing this, they would have implemented the recommendations of the Mufamadi Report into the State Security Agency by now, but neither President Ramaphosa nor Minister Dlodlo have acted on any of these recommendations.”
“South Africa cannot afford these cloak and dagger operations by its intelligence bodies. The looting and destruction in KZN and Gauteng have shown just how important accountability and transparency are.”
Last week, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) also called for the immediate removal of Dlodlo over her handling of the recent unrest in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
“On 16 July 2021, the EFF wrote to Minister of State Security to provide evidence that her department possessed intelligence about the possible riots or activities instigating riots/unrest. This followed her public claims that [the State Security Agency, SSA] had intelligence, forwarded it to the SAPS and [Police] Minister Bheki Cele, yet nothing was done. She was quoted as saying: ‘We analysed and packaged information for the client, we gave it to them. Minister Cele said that intelligence is driving operations. We gave SAPS all the information they needed to plan for these riots’,” EFF spokesperson Vuyani Pambo said.
The party added that such information was never shared or given to Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) despite claims that the SSA was in possession of such information.
“The implications of minister Ayanda Dlodlo’s statement [are] that government knew about the possible blockade of roads and attacks on malls as instigations for a riot or public unrest, but elected to do nothing, which amounts to treason,” Pambo said.
“Over 200 people lost their lives, and thousands more their livelihoods… If the government allowed this to happen, then it has perpetuated a crime against humanity and those responsible must be held accountable.”
- Inside Politics
