17 June 2003
Issued by African National Congress - Parliament
Somlomo/ Sihlalo
Amalungu ephalamende ahloniphekileyo
Izikhulu zeminyango yezobunhloli
Inkulumo yami ngiyinikela kumaqhawe omzabalazo wenkululeko yase Ningizimu Afrika, nakumalungu ezomshoshaphansi nezobuhloli, asebenza ngokuzikhandla ekwakheni isisekelo senkululeko ukuze kube nempilo engcono kuthi sonke. Namhlanje itshe ligaya ngomunye umhlathi, kucace bha ukuthi lohulumeni wentando yeningi oholwa u ANC ulethe ithemba kanye nempilo engcono kubobonke abantu base-Ningizimu Afrika.
Nakuminyango yezubunhloli lomoya woguquko ufikile, sishaya ngolunye unyawo. Nakuba siyizwe elincani futhi elisakhula nkwezomnotho, alikho izwe elingazishaya isifuba lithi lingcono kune Ningizimu Afrika kwezobuhloli.
In short, despite our shoestring budget, we have successfully developed world-class intelligence community. We have developed a professional service that operates under secrecy but still uphold our democracy and basic values of our human rights. The success of our Intelligence Services has is grounded on professionalism, efficiency, effectiveness and simplicity. I believe our coordination of intelligence is the best in the world. Even the superpowers and developed economies, continue to learn and draw from our experiences. We must salute our intelligence to adhere to this simple and effective principle of coordination - as a result we have not experienced any major intelligence failures as witnessed on 11 September 2001 in USA.
Despite all these success, we still face several challenges.
First: we are witnessing changing global challenges that threaten the global security and multilateral world order. There are more sophisticated international crime syndicate involved in activities like money laundering, human smuggling and drug smuggling. There new form of terrorism and other forms of extremism that transcends multiple national borders. We see increasing unilateral actions coupled with hostile foreign policies by those who claim to be the superpowers of this world. We are witnessing new practices like chequebook politics to by nations out of the UN mandate and framework.
To illustrate these challenges, let us look at the War on Iraq:
It is under this background our Intelligence Services are conducting their duties. In addition the new world order has dictated that we should move away from the narrow focus on State security to a broader Human Security involving socio political, economic and environmental issues that concerns our state and its citizens. Our intelligence services have made significant strides in this regard, but clearly more resources are needed to match these new mandates.
The Coordination of Intelligence has improved over the last financial year. This has been illustrated by the quality of their products and the pulling of our limited resources that resulted in major successes in dealing with the national priorities like :
NATIONAL SECURITY DEBATE
When we crafted our white paper we were under assumption that we as South Africans are on the same wave length when dealing with matters of national security. We assumed that there are national security issues which may be threat not only to our individual liberties but also to our constitutional democracy. We further assumed that as people from all sectors of society, we will unite in fighting these national security threats and defend our democracy. However the recent events and diversion views on what we regard as national security has led us to make a call for a national debate of what we regard as our national security concerns. We hope that this August house will afford us a debate on this important topic. We hope our journalists, academics and ordinary people will actively participate in a public debate.
Questions have been asked as to the role of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence in ensuring that our intelligence services are operating within the confines of our constitution and our democratic order. We are glad to report that the culture of respect of the law, the constitutions and the basic human rights of all our citizens prevails within our intelligence services.
In line with the above some questions have been asked why the members of the executive decline replying to some questions and refer them to the JSCI. Member will remember that few years ago, the President asked this house to devise mechanism for dealing with questions which may have a baring on our national security. The practice thus far has been that all those questions referred to the committee are thoroughly interrogate until the committee is satisfied with the answers. There after the Chairperson of the Committee briefs the members concerned without divulging the details which may negatively impact on our national security. I would like to reiterate that our committee is a multi-party committee which always endeavour to reach consensus. To-date we have never voted on any matter before the committee.
The committee interacted with other administrative structures that have oversight over intelligence services.
The office of the judge responsible for interceptions and monitoring under Judge Gordon has been very helpful to the work of the committee. They continue to ensure that the rights of our citizens are not unduly limited by our security services. We thank the guidance given by this office to our services and we also appreciate the cooperation with the committee.
The office of the Auditor General have interacted with the committee on several occasions during the last financial year. They have raised several issues among which are :
The office of the Inspector General is functional. We thank the Minister for appointing the critical staff in this office. The Committee re-advertised last month for the post of the Inspector General after a poor response late last year. We are happy to announce that by the closing date last Fridays we had 42 new applicants for this important post. This is one of the institutions we created to ensure functional accountability of all our intelligence services. It is accountable to the responsible ministers, to parliament through the JSCI and ultimately to the President. This post requires a South African of integrity with a broad understanding of this oversight responsibility of the intelligence services. The committee will be holding public interviews in the next few weeks in order to present a recommended candidate for the approval of this parliament.
Lastly there are two issues our committee is going to be seized with in the next few months.
The first one is the integrity of our border security. With the opening of our borders, the main challenge is how to prevent illegal people movement across our borders. The key challenge is to identify and prevent those who are involved in trans-national crimes like car smuggling, drug smuggling and human smuggling. The committee will also be looking not just the borders but also the integrity of our airspace and national key points. The committee is aware of the decision to establish a special unit of the police which will lead into border security but we are concerned that this mandate has not been complemented by the necessary financial resource. The aim of the visit will be to identify the weaknesses and come up with recommendations to parliament.
The other issues will be to assess the extent of the implementation of the Minimum Information Security Standards (MISS) policy document by state departments. The Committee is worried about the theft of critical information in institutions like the South African Reserve Bank, Denel, DTI, and other government departments. The committee will also table a report after the investigation.