Spooks and crooks — Ramaphosa can’t be sure whom to trust in our world of spies

It is difficult to imagine how President Cyril Ramaphosa sifts through the torrent of advice that comes at him, and how he decides what to act on. Since he became president there has been no shortage of advice on how to run the country, what he needs to do about the economy and how to rehabilitate the state following the looting during his predecessor’s time.

The purpose of presidential advisers and advisory councils is, presumably, to help sieve all the information to assist his decision-making. Even then, there are interests and agendas, and everyone wants to have the president’s ear.

Other than pursuing his investment drive, Ramaphosa has been cautious on all the advice.

It is possible that he is unsure of what to do in a volatile economic climate, particularly when he is on shaky ground politically.

On the issue of national security, Ramaphosa is in an even more precarious position. It is tricky to know what information is credible and whom to trust.

Ramaphosa inherited a compromised State Security Agency, with the previous minister and director-general of state security involved in dubious activities. What they were doing and who they were doing it with has not been fully exposed but information suggests dalliances with the criminal underworld and a foreign power.

This is why Ramaphosa appointed a high-level panel, headed by former cabinet minister Sydney Mufamadi, to “assess the mandate, capacity and organisational integrity of the State Security Agency”. The 10-member panel has its work cut out.

If, as Jacques Pauw suggested in his book The President’s

Keepers, the intelligence services were supporting criminality rather than helping to combat it, it would require people who are naturally predisposed to operating secretly to come forward with such information.

As in other government departments, many experienced and credible officials left when they saw the state being repurposed for corruption. Those who were involved in illicit operations and benefited from corruption are unlikely to be forthcoming with Mufamadi’s panel.

Others could be afraid to reveal what they know, particularly if there was a hidden hand in the training and surveillance operations.

Former state security minister David Mahlobo befriended people who are not known to value the sanctity of life, especially when dealing with whistle-blowers.

While the review panel conducts its work, national security remains dependent on a contaminated system populated by people whose loyalties might not belong to the current government.

To enable state capture, some people in the police, intelligence services, National Prosecuting Authority and South African Revenue Service had to be paid off.

Have all of these people been purged, or do some remain in the system?

While Ramaphosa can outsource work to help the economic recovery, he cannot do the same with security. He cannot have private spooks. Even if he wanted to, where would he find them?

Security is not Ramaphosa’s strength, and this might turn out to be his biggest weakness.

The president needs to trust the state security system to alert him to threats, sources of instability and suspicious activity. The system cannot operate as it did under Jacob Zuma, which was to protect corruption and feed the president’s conspiracy theories.

It certainly cannot be used to spy on anyone who disagrees with the president, and to subvert democracy.

There have been disturbing activities in the country, including cash-van robberies and political killings, which are difficult to arrest without solid intelligence. The discovery of several explosive devices around Durban is troubling, and seems to have caught the security agencies off guard.

The country was hit by blackouts a few weeks ago after Eskom’s labour dispute resulted in sabotage of the power system.

There is no indication that the state intelligence network is able to detect such threats and preserve national security.

There are also new threats, such as cyber warfare and digital media manipulation, that could lead to destabilisation of the democratic system.

Even though Bell Pottinger was exposed for manipulating the national discourse through social media, it does not seem that the state intelligence agencies have since acquired the capacity to detect and counter future attacks of this kind.

The 2019 elections will be hard fought and it is uncertain whether our democratic system can withstand subversive attempts to influence the outcome.

Russian interference ensured the election of Donald Trump, even after US intelligence agencies picked up hacking and social-media manipulation. The mining of people’s personal data on Facebook affected elections in other parts of the world.

In the murkiness of the national discourse, how can we be sure that heightened tensions are not being deliberately manufactured?

With a compromised intelligence system, how would we know if our sovereignty is not already under attack?

In this hazardous period, it is advisable to trust nothing and question everything.