Chairperson, Ministers and Deputy Ministers present, hon members, distinguished guests, members of our intelligence community, our intelligence veterans, the Inspector-General for Intelligence, the Public Protector, and fellow South Africans, in this year of the centenary of the ANC, let me borrow from the words of one of our great leaders:
There is today among all races and men a general desire for progress and for co-operation because co-operation will facilitate and secure that progress ... It is natural, therefore, that there should arise even within and among us this striving, this self-conscious movement and sighing for union. We are the last among all the nations of the earth to discover the priceless jewel of co-operation... Co-operation is the key and the watchword which opens the door, the everlasting door which leads into progress and all national success.
The South African Native Congress is the voice in the wilderness bidding all the dark races of the subcontinent to come together once or twice a year in order to review the past and reject therein all those things which have retarded progress, the things which poison the springs of our national life and virtue, to label and distinguish the sins of civilisation, and as members of one household to talk and think loudly on our home problems and the solution of them.
These were the words of Pixley ka Seme on 24 October 1911, as they were preparing the launch of the ANC.
Today's review of the Budget of the State Security Agency occurs once again when there are no discernible major threats to our constitutional democracy. However, we have to sharpen our vision on some of the challenges and threats we confront, resolving obstacles to progress of our national democratic revolution and engaging in a national dialogue to provide workable solutions to these threats and challenges we face as a young nation. Some of the threats we face derive from factors such as the global economic downturn, violent protest actions and illegal migration. Others may arise from the lack of protective security implementation in government, cybercrime, espionage and subversion, corruption and illicit economy. We may not close our eyes to the threats of food, water and energy security.
On 10 April, His Excellency President Zuma, in his address during the Intelligence Services Day commemoration, reminded us that the -
... intelligence and security services are key and important components of a state. Intelligence services work involves secret work which may, at face value, appear to outsiders to be unrelated to government objectives. We still need to raise awareness that intelligence work is actually intended to advance government work and programmes. It is not just smoke and mirrors, spies and cameras as it is made out to be.
We, in the Department of State Security, are seized with the work of supporting government to achieve the outcomes to ensure that all South Africans are and feel safe and that we create a better South Africa and contribute to a better and safer Africa and the world. For this reason, the Department of State Security will continue to ply its trade guided by the theme Working Together to Build a Safer Nation in a Secure World. This theme marks continuity with change; continuity, because we allow centres of excellence to soar to greater heights, working centres to strive for being centres of excellence, and those areas that are not rising to the challenge are changed with a view to infusing a new focus, priorities and, if needs be, new leadership to drive them.
The processes that we had embarked upon in reviewing and restructuring the intelligence architecture are meant to ensure that we have professional and efficient state security architecture. Commendable progress has been made, since last year, with regard to the restructuring, consolidation and establishment of a professional State Security Agency, SSA. In our previous address, we committed ourselves to finalising the integration of all our operating systems. We are happy to report that the benefits of an integrated State Security Agency are already visible owing to the savings that are accruing from having a single Asset Register, payroll, budget management, financial accounting and procurement system.
We have entered the last phase of this restructuring process and have commenced with the official migration of our members into new structures. We have also appointed a programme manager at a deputy director-general level to ensure that this crucial project is finalised within our timeframes. As part of stabilising the organisation, the migration of members is expected to be concluded by June 2012. This will be followed by the process of filling vacancies through internal transfers and external recruitment. Pursuant to our commitment made last year of codifying the presidential proclamation of 2009 that created the State Security Agency, we have prepared and tabled in Parliament the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill. This legislation is currently before the ad hoc committee of the National Assembly, and we hope it will soon be finalised into law governing the State Security Agency.
In the current financial year, we will focus on reviewing the remuneration management system in order to complement the changes in the organisational structures and motivate the recruitment and retention of high calibre members, whilst improving organisational effectiveness and the sustainable use of financial resources.
Training remains the driving pillar of our restructuring programme whose mainstay is to reskill, refocus, empower and energise our members. Particular attention will be placed on tradecraft, as well as language training. We will establish a centre for foreign intelligence service training whilst, on the other hand, our members will continue to receive specialised training from our strategic partners abroad.
Our flagship cadet programme is being reviewed in order to attract loyal, dedicated and disciplined members to the agency. This year we have begun with the recruitment of 150 young South Africans to our college as part of a three-year plan to inject 540 new recruits in our community. Part of our objective as State Security is to be able to conduct vetting for all government departments in a user-friendly and speedier manner. This is in line with our counterintelligence mandate that ensures that we create conditions of security that enable government and critical state entities to do their work. In this respect, we have prioritised the appointment of managers in the critical areas of vetting and information communications and technology, ICT, security. Last year, we committed ourselves to reducing the backlog over the three-year period.
As part of extending our vetting field unit beyond national departments, consultations were undertaken by the State Security Agency with provincial and national departments regarding the establishment of vetting field units. To date, 19 vetting field units were established at a number of organs of state.
In this financial year we will build on this progress and prioritise the finalisation of the integrated SSA national vetting strategy. The strategy is intended to improve turnaround time in the vetting processes. The risk and project-based approaches that we intend to build into the strategy will go a long way in assisting with unnecessary backlogs. Importantly, we seek to automate the vetting process to make it more user-friendly and to cut down on the turnaround times. This automation will begin the introduction of a continuous rather than a periodic approach to vetting. As part of our vetting mandate, we have also prioritised the training of security managers across government departments.
When delivering his state of the nation address, His Excellency President Zuma called for the screening of all supply chain management personnel in government. This is one of the interventions aimed at curbing corruption. This is critical, given government's bold and visionary infrastructure development programme. In this regard, we have prioritised this project and remain ready and capable to implement it.
We continue with the project of integrating our intelligence technology platforms in order to improve service delivery and to reduce the turnaround time. The storage capacity for the lawful intercepts was upgraded, which has resulted in a faster and more efficient monitoring system. This has resulted in the improvement of our delivery of lawful intercepts to law enforcement agencies. The product distribution network, together with the Internet Protocol Interception Systems, will be prioritised in this financial year.
We wish to express our appreciation to Judge Khumalo, our former designated interception judge, who has retired, and wish him well. We thank him for his contribution in ensuring that we do our work in terms of the law. We also welcome our new designated judge, Judge Yvonne Mokgoro. We look forward to working with her in finalising the outstanding matters such as the electronic direction system, as well as distribution networks.
We are pleased to report that Cabinet approved the National Cybersecurity Policy Framework in February 2012. This policy will improve the co- ordination of government's response to the 21st century challenges of information security. The State Security Agency continues to co-ordinate the work of government in this regard, with the hope of finalising a comprehensive policy by the end of next year.
We had reported last year that we were in an advanced stage of developing our national security strategy and our national interest doctrine. The National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, Nicoc, task team has developed a draft security strategy, following consultations with critical role players in and outside the security structures, to enrich the concept. This draft strategy is to be further refined with the involvement of stakeholders, including Parliament, before it is finalised into a composite strategy.
This House will recall that, as part of our National Security Strategy, we had identified dual-use technologies that have both security and commercial applications as a priority. An interdepartmental task team has been established and is tasked to determine the status of dual-use technologies and to propose plans for control and research and development. As part of the SADC region, our country continues to be confronted by the problems of illegal migration and organised transnational crime, including human smuggling. We continue to work within the SADC framework, together with our neighbours, to collectively address this global challenge in our region. Our work on the formation of the border management agency is on course. The business case has been established and will soon be finalised by the Cabinet committee. We hope to establish a fully fledged border management agency by 2014.
The single biggest threat to our developmental agenda is fraud and corruption. This is a cancer that steals from the most vulnerable in our society and undermines good governance and public confidence in the state. We continue with our efforts of ensuring that the security cluster is free of elements of corruption. We appreciate the outstanding work done by our inspector-general, through investigations into the allegations of malpractice and corruption within the security agencies, and we will not hesitate to act on her recommendations. We continue to participate in the anticorruption task team which co-ordinates effective investigation and prosecution of significant crimes including corruption.
Our flagship programme of securing special events is on course. I don't have to remind you that we secured, as a nation, the Cop 17 conference last year and, because of the dignitaries who attended an important occasion on 8 January in Mangaung, we also protected that event.
We recognise the attendant challenges of establishing a new organisation. In this respect we are committing ourselves to the creation of a conducive working environment for all our members through establishing internal consultation mechanisms. The task team was tasked by the Minister in 2008 to find ways of improving this consultation mechanism, and its work is soon to be finalised.
Our efforts to ensure that there is closer co-operation between veterans and the State Security Agency are ongoing. We have completed the draft constitution for a state security veterans association which will enable the sharing of intelligence knowledge, experiences and expertise with current members. In addition, it is envisaged that the association will promote the history of heritage of the State Security Agency. We have directed the agency to continue with consultations with our veterans in order to establish the association by the end of this financial year.
The gradual transformation of the world from a bipolar arrangement into a global village, coupled with the inherent competition for world resources and the desire by nation states to claim their share of the world markets, highlights some of the challenges in today's complex world affairs. President Zuma also reminded us that -
... the radical transformation occurring globally has narrowed the distinction between foreign and domestic threats. World borders are now softer than ever. Whether it is transnational crime, terrorism or the global political situation, the international security situation requires all states to remain vigilant and to co-operate in protecting respective national security interests and their citizens.
The SADC region remains stable, except for the political and security challenge in Madagascar. The implementation of the SADC roadmap is held hostage by that regime's failure to enact amnesty legislation and the unconditional safe return of all political exiles, including Ravalomanana, to the island.
The collapse of the Gaddafi government has led to insecurity, increased terrorism and the proliferation of arms in the Sahel and Maghreb regions. This has resulted in an armed insurgence from the northern part of Mali and the subsequent coup d'tat that deposed President Amadou Tour on 21 March 2012. The divisions in the ranks of the army has not been able to stop the insurgence but resulted in an attempted coup last week. The Economic Community of West African States, Ecowas, is trying to intervene, but the message from the African Union, AU, and the international community is clear: Stop the insurgency and division of the country and return to democratic processes and elections.
The people of Guinea-Bissau continue to face tragedy after tragedy. January was marked by the demise of former President Sanh. This necessitated the speaker of the national assembly, Mr Pereira, to act as interim president and to prepare for national elections, which were held in March 2012. The ruling party, under the leadership of Prime Minister Carlos Gomes Junior, obtained 49% of the votes in the first round and were poised to win the second round in April; yet on 12 April, the army once again staged a coup d'tat.
The fundamental problem in Guinea-Bissau is the lack of retirement arrangements for the army. This has resulted in a top-heavy army structure which thrives on political interference and the drug trade. The AU will not tolerate the military junta and has called for the immediate reinstatement of the elected government and electoral processes. We further call for the deployment of an international force to assist Ecowas in the security sector reforms and protection of the democratic processes. We urge the international community to mobilise resources for these reforms, including solidarity from the global citizens to the masses of people of Guinea- Bissau.
We remain concerned with the tension and recent hostilities between Sudan and South Sudan. We call on both parties to cease all hostilities and return to negotiations under the auspices of the AU High-Level Panel led by former President Thabo Mbeki. War is not a solution, but dialogue is an answer. As South Africa, we will continue to encourage both parties in finding solutions, particularly in relation to revenue-sharing mechanisms and border demarcation. Despite these hot spots in Africa, including political challenges in Somalia, in the words of Seme:
The brighter day is arising upon Africa. Already I seem to see her chains dissolved ... conflicts and strife are rapidly disappearing before the fusing force of this enlightened perception of the true intertribal relation, which relation should subsist among a people with a common destiny.
As Africans, we must deal decisively with Afro-pessimism and dismiss the negative utterances of our detractors, like the member there. The role of the AU Commission is central to the rising of our continent. We must always ensure that our decisions are taken democratically to reflect the views of all states as equals, including ensuring that all our member states are properly represented in the leadership and staff of our union. For 49 years the Southern African region of the AU has never been given the opportunity to lead the organisation. This is contrary to the practice and spirit of regional rotation and the equality amongst the five regions of our continental body. In this respect, the SADC is once again putting forward the candidature of Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to be the next Chair of the AU Commission.