In the next few days, President Cyril Ramaphosa will establish a review panel to look at whether or not the State Security Agency (SSA) and the intelligence services need to be restructured.
"I will shortly be setting up a review panel to assess the structure of the agency relative to its mandate, and inquire into its systems and capacity," Ramaphosa said during a question and answer session in the National Assembly on Tuesday.
"I have also instructed the minister of state security to take the necessary steps to attend to all governance and operational challenges confronting the agency and to work to restore the public’s confidence in this critical institution," he said.
The country’s intelligence services have been dogged by scandals in recent times amid claims that they are being abused for political reasons.
In April, the DA said it would approach the Constitutional Court to have controversial former director-general of the SSA Arthur Fraser’s appointment as national commissioner of correctional services, set aside with immediate effect.
Ramaphosa shifted Fraser to the Department of Correctional Services in April. This was after Fraser faced a court application from the Inspector-General of Intelligence, Setlhomamaru Dintwe. Dintwe had said that Fraser had been obstructing the functioning of his office to prevent the watchdog body from investigating serious allegations against Fraser.
In 2017, the DA lodged a formal complaint with the office of the inspector-general of intelligence, in terms of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act, requesting an investigation into Fraser’s involvement with the Principal Agent Network (PAN) programme, which he, as the then-deputy director-general of the National Intelligence Agency, initiated and oversaw from 2007-09.
It has been alleged that members of the network "were tasked to conduct illegal activities without securing proper authorisation." The PAN project was exposed in journalist Jacques Pauw’s book The President’s Keepers‚ in which it was claimed that up to R1bn of taxpayers’ money was wasted on the project. Fraser purportedly used the network to benefit several of his relatives.
Asked by DA leader Mmusi Maimane why Fraser had been shifted to another department instead of being suspended as was the case with South African Revenue Service vommissioner Tom Moyane, Ramaphosa said the matter was sensitive and he subsequently invoked the subjudice rule.
"The matter is before our courts. Much as I would have wanted to engage Maimane, I have found that I have to respond to papers they [the DA] have lodged in court … we will be able to provide that answer through the court papers … as they say the matter is subjudice," Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa added that the Fraser case was sensitive, which informed the decision to shift him.
"In the case of the intelligence service, we had to take a number of considerations into account due to the sensitive nature of our intelligence service, and I decided it’s best to move Fraser … so that the review panel can get into the depths of the issues in our intelligence service, and indeed, if there is further action to be taken, it will be taken," he said.
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