Unrest prompts security cluster realignment, say experts

The violent unrest that engulfed parts of KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last month – and the intelligence failings that marked it – may have pushed President Cyril Ramaphosa to finally start moving on the recommendations of the panel he established in 2018 to review the State Security Agency’s (SSA’s) set up.

Ramaphosa this week announced he was scrapping the department of state security and placing political responsibility for the SSA with the presidency.

The portfolio will now fall under new Minister in the Presidency Mondli Gungubele and Zizi Kodwa, who is now the deputy minister in the presidency responsible for state security.

The bold move comes three years after Ramaphosa appointed a high-level review panel, headed by former safety and security minister Sydney Mufamadi, to assess the structure of the embattled SSA; and two years after its report – which recommended, among others, locating part of the country’s intelligence services in the office of the presidency.

But it also comes fresh on the back of a wave of looting and wanton destruction which ravaged two of the country’s most populous and economically key provinces in mid-July.

Senior risk analyst at N14- North Jasmine Opperman yesterday said the violence had presented our intelligence structures with a “crisis moment”.

“I can understand why the president has decided he needs some direct control,” she said.

The move has raised red flags for some. Political analyst Ralph Mathkega says it “just doesn’t bode well for democracy”.

Mathekga described it as “potentially very controversial”.

The alleged capture of the SSA and former president Jacob Zuma’s alleged use of it for his own ends has also come under the spotlight at the Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.

But Mathekga was not convinced this justified bringing state security under the presidency.

“There are certain institutions that you need to leave be, so you don’t disturb the chain of accountability built into the system.”

Opinion is split, though, with others – including former South African Secret Service head Mo Shaik – welcoming the move.

“National intelligence’s rightful place is under the president,” Shaik said, adding government looked to be aligning itself with the Mufamadi report and that was a step in the right direction.

“I think the president’s done this in pursuit of constitutionalism,” Shaik said.

“The way I see it is as a return to the constitutional mandate of the security services.”

Opperman, meanwhile, said at the end of the day, “all intelligence processes are always vulnerable to politicisation and exploitation”.

But she said there were safeguards in place to guard against this – including the SSA’s own management structures, as well as its policies, directives and standard operating procedures.

She also said Kodwa’s role – “as a gatekeeper between the mandate of intelligence in our constitutional democracy and with the president” – would be vital.

Opperman said, though, the question was about the capacity and capability in the country’s intelligences structures for a U-turn.

“I’m afraid there is at this point a complete erosion and implosion which first needs to be addressed,” she said