President Cyril Ramaphosa says his placement of the intelligence services in the presidency is not for securing unfettered power over citizens but aimed at addressing its factional political manipulation.
Testifying before the Zondo commission on Thursday, Ramaphosa said he had decided to centralise the intelligence services in a bid to restore confidence in its role to the nation’s interests and “never to be seen to be serving certain sections of our nation”.
He said this was part of ensuring that the recommendations made by the high-level panel into the legislative, operational and governance affairs of the State Security Agency (SSA), led by former state security minister Sydney Mufamadi, were implemented.
Ramaphosa announced Mufamadi as his national security adviser last week when he took the decision to move the SSA into the presidency and disbanded its ministry.
He said the Mufamadi report had revealed that the SSA had been used to serve factions of the ANC under former president Jacob Zuma.
“It has got a lot of good people in it. We just need to realign its work with the objectives of our developmental state. It is possible that in a time to come we may once again delineate a person, as said in our constitution, who can be in charge, but for now I have deemed it proper that we realign it properly and have it in the presidency,” Ramaphosa said.
He insisted that this was international practice as state security was viewed as a very sensitive and important arm of the state.
Ramaphosa’s decision to centralise intelligence services came after police minister Bheki Cele and former SSA minister Ayanda Dlodlo publicly disagreed on whether the SSA had promptly handed intelligence information to the police ahead of the recent looting and public violence which took place in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng.
Ramaphosa said that his decision had been misunderstood as centralising power, creating dictatorship and “creating a super presidency” by taking intelligence services under his direct control.
“Far be it from it, all we are seeking to do to this very important entity of government is to realign and repurpose it. Having Dr Mufamadi who used to be a minister himself in the past but who also headed the high-level report is of great benefit to us as a nation as his deep knowledge is going to assist me in ensuring the security works well,” he said.
The commission previously heard how the SSA had been used for ANC factional purposes and to target opponents under Zuma.
Ramaphosa dismissed allegations that he was planning to use the intelligence services to target his political rivals.
“I am not wired that way. I am not geared in that way. As we professionalise state security, we will be wanting to have officers and individuals who will swear their allegiance to the constitution of our country and not be there to protect the president,” Ramaphosa said.
Ramaphosa was earlier quizzed on illegal operations within the SSA, including a clandestine spy unit tasked for Zuma’s protection between 2007 and 2011.
Ramaphosa said he had known about the allegations through Mufamadi’s report.
“It happened as many other wrong things that are unexplainable, if I can use such a term, and things that you find incomprehensible, did. Our task now, and this is where the commission will help us play a key role, is to deal with all the things that went wrong and all the people who participated and the perpetrators in all this,” he said.
He admitted that he was aware of the clandestine operation, which he said had partly motivated him to bring intelligence services into the presidency and centralise them in a bid to ensure that intelligence operations were on his radar.
He said there was an “intensive investigative process” under way which would unearth and unravel the alleged dubious activities.
Evidence leader Adv Paul Pretorius pointed out that one of the SSA’s spies who testified before the commission under protection, only named as Ms K, had testified that an internal investigation into the so-called “Operation Veza” had been halted, with people fired and the information collated put under lock and key.
Ramaphosa insisted that the investigation into the saga was still under way. “It may seem like that the investigation has been stopped but it will not."
Pretorius questioned Ramaphosa on the timing of the removal of former SSA acting director Gen Loyiso Jafta, who had testified before the commission on the rot within the intelligence agency.
Ramaphosa said Jafta had been removed because legislation did not allow the continued renewal of his contract at the helm of SSA.
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