Parliament’s 'blind eye' on security capture exposed
Parliament did not cover itself in glory in its oversight of the State Security Agency (SSA), Chief Justice Raymond Zondo found.
Business Day notes that his report found that Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence is supposed to oversee intelligence services including the SSA, defence intelligence, police crime intelligence and the Inspector-General of Intelligence.
However, it failed to act on reports of malfeasance and lack of compliance with legislation. ‘Parliament has at least to some extent contributed towards state capture because its failure to do its job meant that acts of state capture and corruption were allowed to spread and deepen.’
Zondo’s fifth report highlights the rot that set in at the SSA under former Director-General Arthur Fraser, who – together with ex-State Security Minister David Mahlobo and head of special operations Thulani Dlomo – was found to be at the heart of a scheme to use the SSA to advance former President Jacob Zuma’s personal and political interests.
The report recommends law enforcement agencies investigate bringing criminal charges against Fraser over a secretive intelligence programme, as well as Mahlobo, now Deputy Minister of Human Settlements, Water & Sanitation, and Dlomo for handling large sums of money.
Zondo noted that in 2009 Zuma restructured the country’s intelligence services by amalgamating the National Intelligence Agency and the SA Secret Service to form the SSA.
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