Shambles in security services laid bare
Fears over role of foreigners, leaks, lost skills and graft
SOUTH African spies leak information and are grossly understaffed, with only 163 people supposed to do the security vetting of 1.3 million civil servants, according to a damning oversight report tabled in parliament.
Skeletons are rattling in the cupboard of the state security agencies after parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence offered a rare glimpse into its usually secret world this week.
The 66-page JSCI annual report offers the only feedback the public gets on how the billions showered annually on the country’s spies and intelligence apparatus are spent, as the committee always meets in private and its members are not allowed to talk about their work.
Once again, this year’s report shows an intelligence community in shambles, with low skills levels, qualified audit opinions and an appetite for further intrusion into the lives of citizens. The annual report reveals:
An integrated, national vetting strategy has not been approved;
The intelligence services are worried about “the implications of large-scale employment of foreign nationals by government and academic institutions”;
They want to tighten monitoring and control of private landing strips;
Intelligence operatives believe the risks attached to foreign missions recruiting South Africans for strategic positions must be assessed;
Regarding the “secrecy bill”, which President Jacob Zuma has still not officially signed into law, the report states: “The State Security Agency is awaiting promulgation of the Protection of State Information Bill to establish appropriate standards for securing classified information and the imposition of punitive measures for contravention of the relevant security standards”;
Zuma, a known proponent of the controversial bill, has requested security agencies to take advice from the US and Russia on the imposition of such measures;
Security agencies plan to act on allegations that South African border officials are corrupt;
Red lights are flashing due to the loss of skilled staff in defence intelligence;
New processes are to be instituted to decrease risk when recruiting staff for South Africa’s foreign missions;
Possible specialised training of South African security agency staff in Russia and Cuba is strongly mooted; and
Information leaks from the security agencies pose a challenge, but no details are given.
It is also revealed that the inspecting judge for cellphone interceptions, Yvonne Mokgoro, granted 387 requests for interception of electronic communication, and refused only five.
Asked to comment on the report, State Security Department spokesman Brian Dube said: “People are entitled to their observations. The report is done by the JSCI and I am not at liberty to make any comment on their report.”
According to Murray Hunter of the Right2Know campaign, the report reveals little about the happenings in the shadowy intelligence sector.
“Once again we see signs of the eagerness that signing the secrecy bill is somehow a solution to all the problems that the intelligence sector faces. Clearly the one thing we don’t need is more secrecy.”