Hon Chairperson, Minister, members and guests, owing to the secretive nature of the operations of intelligence services, these services have often been abused for political purposes. This occurrence is not unique to South Africa, but it was certainly a feature of the security service during the apartheid era.
Unaccountable officials of immense power were able to abuse systems and distort outcomes, resulting in serious infractions of the rule of law. During the 1980s and early 1990s the securocrats created a parallel state known as the National Security Management System, which bypassed even those limited mechanisms of parliamentary oversight that were available. The culmination of this process was the declaration of successive states of emergency in the 1980s, in which people were detained, tortured and even killed. During the constitutional negotiations it was possible to insert into the Constitution provisions that guaranteed proper oversight by Parliament of the security and intelligence services.
Section 199(8) of the Constitution provides that, "to give effect to the principles of transparency and accountability, multiparty parliamentary committees must have oversight of all security services in a manner determined by national legislation or the rules and orders of Parliament".
The Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence was established in terms of section 2 of the Intelligence Services Oversight Act of 1994. The Act makes provision, subject to the Constitution, for the performance of oversight functions set out in the Act. Section 5 provides that, "The committee shall conduct its functions in a manner consistent with the protection of national security."
In practice, members must be security vetted by the National Intelligence Agency, NIA. Thereafter the committee meets in a secured facility across the road. All its sessions are secret. No information or documentation may leave the committee room, and no member may disclose any information obtained in the course of committee briefings or deliberations. Obviously, this severely limits our ability to debate issues relating to state security publicly, in any meaningful way.
One of the functions of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence is to obtain from the Auditor-General an audit report compiled in accordance with section 4(6) of the Auditor-General Act, Act 12 of 1995, and after obtaining the report, to consider, one, the financial statements of the services, the academy and Comsec; and, two, any report issued by the Auditor-General on the affairs of the services and the intelligence services entities and report thereon to Parliament, within two months after 31 March of each year, on the activities of the committee during the preceding year, together with the findings made by it and the recommendations it deems appropriate, and to provide a copy to the President and the responsible Minister. Then there is the so-called Secret Service Evaluation Committee, which is obliged to submit a report on the secret services budget and expenditure to the JSCI in order to ensure proper oversight. This committee has, however, not been established. Then, again, we are awaiting the annual reports from the services and entities.
During this year, the JSCI held budget discussions with the civil intelligence services and entities, crime intelligence and defence intelligence. These discussions form an integral part of our oversight exercise. All JSCI members are vetted in accordance with the prescribed Act, but we are still not in a position to obtain much-needed documentation. The JSCI should be in a position to oversee quarterly reports and be pro-active, but fulfil a role similar to that of Scopa in which we have to work with historic information.
The seriousness of oversight cannot be overemphasised. If we cannot get this right, we may easily find ourselves in the same situation as in the 1980s high point of unaccountability. Currently, the only available document from the Auditor-General to members of the JSCI was his pro-forma statement that audits were performed according to the necessary audit practices and according to a category, declaring his opinion. No financial statements were attached in order to do proper oversight prior to this Budget Vote debate. If we as a committee want to do justice to our task and provide a service to Parliament and our country, we should look at exploring mechanisms to change the practice from working without historic information to a committee that is proactive and deals with real-time information.
Since April 2011, the services and our Minister were dominant in local newspapers and abroad, whilst the following was published in the Mail & Guardian, South Africa, on 8 April 2011, and I quote:
Spooks Back to their Old Tricks Unfortunately the consolidation of immense powers in the hands of spies loyal to Jacob Zuma and the ANC likely signal worse to come, if not for the party then for democracy.
In the City Press of 3 April 2011 it was reported that, "Crime intelligence 'completely dysfunctional'" and that "tensions between Cele and Mdluli were running high after two police intelligence operatives paid an unannounced visit to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's office".
This is only a small sample of behavioural actions by individuals in the security environment that have a negative impact on its functionality. Actions like these should not happen in an open and transparent society. It is precisely for this reason that I think the JSCI should be trusted with timeous information in order to assist with its oversight mandate. I thank you. [Applause.]