Agents say SSA re-vetting is an attempt to purge Zuma loyalists – report

The minister of state security’s ordering of State Security Agency officials’ re-vetting has been criticised as a witch hunt by department insiders, according to a report in The Sunday Times.

Minister Dipuo Letsatsi-Duba said she would be re-vetting SSA officials using intelligence divisions in the South African Police Service and the South African National Defence Force on Tuesday.

“Due to recent developments in the SSA, which border on serious misconduct and ill-discipline by intelligence officers, the minister has taken a decision for a sporadic re-vetting of officials, which will be suitably performed outside of the agency,” Letsatsi-Duba said.

“The misconduct borders on a serious security risk and threatens the integrity of the institution. The minister has taken serious note of this and decided that such behaviour cannot go without action.”

However according to officials who spoke to the Times, the process ordered by Letsatsi-Duba is simply an attempt to remove SSA officials who are believed to be loyal to the agency’s former director-general Arthur Fraser and former president Jacob Zuma.

“This is nothing but a political ploy to purge people,” one source told The Times, on condition of anonymity. “They are dealing with those they think were [Fraser’s] henchmen. This minister is clueless, she must go.

According to the report Letsatsi-Duba wants to dismantle the entire management structure of the SSA, which she says was set up to loot state funds.

For more news your way, download The Citizen’s app for iOS and Android.