Signal jamming blamed on juniors
MINISTERS in the Cabinet’s security cluster yesterday blamed junior officials for last week’s jamming of cellphone signals in Parliament, saying the executive was not involved.
CAPE TOWN — Ministers in the Cabinet’s security cluster yesterday blamed junior officials for last week’s jamming of cellphone signals in the National Assembly, saying the executive was not involved at an operational level as this had been left to officials.
At a media briefing yesterday, State Security Minister David Mahlobo yesterday apologised for the jamming and promised an internal probe would determine if it was deliberate or not. If it was, this would be sabotage, he said.
Institute for Security Studies senior research associate Judith February said the bottom line was that the state security minister was accountable for his agents’ actions. “It is utterly inconceivable that an operator could give permission for the use of a jamming device.”
Mr Mahlobo and his colleagues in the security cluster — Police Minister Nathi Nhleko, Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, and Justice and Correctional Services Minister Michael Masutha — were unapologetic about getting involved in the events surrounding the state of the nation address, saying the Powers and Privileges of Parliament and Provincial Legislatures Act gave them the authority to do so if requested.
“We do our job within the law and this is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that we will be involved in securing” the state of the nation address, Mr Mahlobo said. A threat analysis was always in place to determine which security measures would be applied, he said.
He declined to throw light on the nature of the threats that had led to the use of specific equipment during the address.
Ms Mapisa-Nqakula referred to threats to disrupt the address, insisting that all operations were informed by intelligence. The government was “very committed” to the freedom of communication for all South Africans — the address had been held in the evening precisely so that more people could hear it, she pointed out.
Apportioning blame for blunders to minor officials has become a recurring theme in the government’s responses to crises and scandals such as the so-called Guptagate and the Nkandla debacle.
Democratic Alliance MP David Maynier said Mr Mahlobo was in all-out damage control. “The minister is following a ‘rogue official defence’— which has become standard operating procedure for dealing with major scandals that have broken out under President Jacob Zuma. Ultimately, a few officials will be made to walk the plank in order to firewall members of the executive from political fallout.”
The real issue, Mr Maynier said, was that the State Security Agency should never have played any role in the proceedings in Parliament.
“The … agency could only have become involved … if there was a credible threat or potential threat of hostile acts of foreign intervention directed at undermining the constitutional order of the republic. The threat to disrupt Parliament, or even embarrass the president, clearly falls outside the mandate.”
WHO is running the country? The question is being posed by colleagues from the media and the twitterati after news broke that the jammer scandal in Parliament last week was due to an “operational error” by a “member on duty”.
The question was being raised as it became likely that yet another lowly official will take the fall for the jamming of the cellphone signal in the National Assembly last Thursday before the Economic Freedom Fighters were hauled out of Parliament by thuggish security forces.
State Security Minister David Mahlobo said at a briefing : “The operator failed to properly terminate the device and this affected proper access to some users of mobile phones. A departmental investigation is under way with a possibility of disciplinary action for those responsible for this operational failure.”
This was after members of the media had complained vigorously on the night — approaching officials from the Government Communication and Information System, from Parliament, from government departments and even the Presidency. This was also after the South African National Editors’ Forum approached the courts for relief — and obtained an undertaking from Parliament that signal jamming would never happen again.
The day before Mahlobo’s admission that this violation of a fundamental right enshrined in the constitution was due to the incompetence of a lowly official, African National Congress (ANC) secretary-general Gwede Mantashe released a statement on the events in Parliament.
A single line showed leadership that was absent when ANC MPs shouting “voetsek” as journalists called for the return of the signal in the House last Thursday. Mantashe condemned the jamming of the signal, “as this violated the constitution”. One assumes then, that the ANC was not aware of this extraordinary measure.
Then there are the revelations in this paper this week that Communications Minister Faith Muthambi has defied the ANC and recommended that the Cabinet opt for set-top boxes without conditional access when SA migrates from analogue to digital TV later this year. In a briefing yesterday, the Cabinet said it had not yet decided on the issue. Alliance partner the South African Communist Party came out strongly, urging the government not to “bypass processes”.
The signal jamming issue and that of the set-top boxes raise questions whether the ANC-led alliance is in fact running the country.
The signal jamming blunder has been likened to both Nkandla and Guptagate — in both cases officials took the fall with the elusive spectre of a mystical “Number One” hovering above. Mahlobo is petrified of terror attacks and drones, yet leaves the critical task of manning a “device” to an operator who is incompetent.
But my opening question is misleading, of course — officials appearing to be running amok in the cases of Guptagate and Nkandla and incompetent ones manning the “jammer” are convenient scapegoats for a leader to whom the word accountability does not refer and never will. We now understand why President Jacob Zuma is never nervous, as he told journalists two weeks ago.
Why be nervous when there is always someone else to take the fall?