Chair, this report provides an overview of the joint oversight visits by the defence committees to Pretoria in August 2011. The report, however, is not complete. Why is the report not complete? It is because the report makes no mention of the secret briefing conducted behind closed doors by the SA Navy.
This is what reportedly happened. The committees were briefed by Vice Admiral Refiloe Mudimo on the SA Navy's new antipiracy mission. The briefing was conducted behind closed doors and committee members were required to sign a disclosure form, undertaking not to make public information disclosed during the briefing. [Interjections.] What is not clear is who called for the briefing to be conducted behind closed doors because no information, or very little information, I am informed, which was disclosed at the briefing could not be made public.
What is clear is that the briefing amounted to a closed meeting of the Portfolio Committee on Defence as well as the Joint Standing Committee on Defence. The question must be asked, therefore: In closing the meeting, did the committees comply with the Constitution and the Rules of Parliament? I have my doubts and for that reason I will be approaching Mr Cedric Frolick, House Chairperson on Committees, Oversight and Information Communication and Technology, to look into this matter and determine whether, in deciding to close the meeting, the committees complied with the relevant provisions of the Constitution and the Rules of Parliament.
There is a paragraph in this report, Chairperson, which we do not support. It reads:
Parliament should strengthen the rules and procedures governing the receipt and management of sensitive information, particularly documents relating to national security.
This, I am sure hon members would agree, is ominous because what is happening is clear. The hon Minister of Defence and Military Veterans, Lindiwe Sisulu, is working hand in glove with ruling party committee members and she is going to try to turn the Joint Standing Committee on Defence into a joint standing committee on intelligence. Closed meetings should be the exception, but the Minister wants closed meetings to become the rule.
Well, I have news for the Minister. We are not going to allow this to happen. [Interjections.] We will resist every step of the way and we will not allow the Minister's new paranoia to shut down effective oversight and scrutiny of the SANDF in this Parliament. [Interjections.] [Applause.]