Maverick News

State Security Agency — Are planned retrenchments a purge or a bid to smoke out State Capture sleepers?

2 Dec 2024

Considering the SSA and other intelligence services have been implicated as a key locus of State Capture in several reports, it is peculiar that the DA’s Dianne Kohler Barnard should be of the view that there is no need for an industrial deep clean.

The Democratic Alliance’s spokesperson on state security, Dianne Kohler Barnard, recently announced that the party had been “reliably informed that a mass bloodletting” was under way at the State Security Agency (SSA).

Senior managers had been given three weeks to apply for early retirement or face retrenchment, while the same terms would be later put to the rest of the SSA staff, she noted.

Forcing out “expertise” in this manner would be “wholly iniquitous”, Kohler Barnard said, adding that while the defence and intelligence services were not regulated by the Labour Relations Act, this did not give Minister in the Presidency, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, “the right to simply fire swathes of staff without reason”.

What made this worse, she said, was that the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence was still in the process of being formed.

A fork in the road

Considering the SSA and other intelligence services have been implicated as a key locus of State Capture in several reports, it is peculiar that Kohler Barnard should be of the view that there is no need for an industrial deep clean.

It is public knowledge that the services have been serially abused by various adminstrations. Evidence is contained in the 2018 High Level Panel Review into the State Security Agency, the Nugent Report, the Zondo Commission into State Capture and former Inspector-General of Intelligence (IGI) Faith Radebe’s “classified” 2014 report into SSA infiltration.

The contentious Radebe report, the source of much past misery and lawfare, has since been discredited and set aside by the court.

Prior to this, it had been weaponised by Economic Freedom Fighter (EFF) commanders-in-chief, Julius Malema and Floyd Shivambu, joined by impeached former Public Protector, Busisiwe Mkhwebane, to target the late minister, Pravin Gordhan, as well as senior South Africa Revenue Service (SARS) officials, including Ivan Pillay and Johann van Loggerenberg.

Read more: Fatal blow to Mkhwebane and EFF as court sets aside intelligence report at core of investigation into SARS ‘rogue unit’

Van Loggerenberg told Daily Maverick last week: “I began to blow the whistle against those specific SSA units way back in 2010. Again in 2011. Again in 2012. And again in 2013. In 2014, August and September, I indicated 30 plus matters to the IGI to investigate and I implicated over 60 people,” he recalled.

Read more: Themba Maseko & Johann van Loggerenberg: State Capture whistle-blowers call for protection after home burglaries

He added he had provided evidence, had indicated where more could be found and in fact had offered to assist with this task.

“It took me (and others) an entire decade to basically win that battle. I even provided [Advocate Muzi] Sikhakhane evidence of this, but he simply ignored it in totality,” he said

No immaculate conception

The SSA, from its inception in October 2009, has been mired in controversy after former president Jacob Zuma, by illegal proclamation, collapsed into one agency the National Intelligence Agency, the South African Secret Service, the South African National Academy of Intelligence and the National Communications Centre.

The government-owned Electronics Communications Security (Pty) Ltd became Comsec, which provided “electronic communications security products and services to organs of the state”.

Read more: 2014 Radebe report into ‘rogue unit’ based on discredited witnesses, sheds light on genesis of attack on SARS

In a January 2019 interview with the then IGI, Setlhomamaru Dintwe, and his legal adviser, advocate Jay Govender, Mkhwebane had sought to authenticate the Radebe report, which had been classified. She had not been entitled to be in possession of the document.

Mkhwebane – a former SSA employee, former EFF MP and now a member of Zuma’s uMkhonto Wesizwe (MK) party – sought to “authenticate” the report. She had sworn, under oath in court papers as well as her Section 194 impeachment inquiry, that it had been dropped off by an “anonymous” person in the foyer of her offices. She later admitted the EFF had done so.

In the interview Mkhwebane can be heard threatening to call on “higher powers” to charge Dintwe should his office not surrender the classified report.

Read more: Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s big fat fishing expedition for Radebe report

It was during this exchange that Dintwe revealed that about 186 “sleepers” or “agents” who were still operational were being investigated by his office.

False flags and other dirty tricks

In the intelligence business these sleepers are known as “false flag” or “distance recruitments”.

This happens when individuals, known as “cut outs”, are used by an unseen spymaster. These recruited individuals might share the same convictions as the spymaster or have a weakness that can be exploited. Often the target is unsuspecting and can be manipulated and may not even receive payment.

These agents, according to a source with intimate knowledge of the security landscape, could be “anyone from a cleaner emptying rubbish of key offices or admin staff who help to appoint people that are ‘placed’. Many sit and wait for instructions and the bulk run these false flag type activities.”

“They’re simply tools in a value chain to use at times of need,” our source said.

At the meeting with Mkhwebane, the IGI admitted to struggling to identify the SSA’s Special Operations Unit spies, as none of the lists provided had names.

This unit had been run as a parallel intelligence structure by Zuma’s “superspy”, Thulani Dlomo, who remains at liberty.

Dintwe also revealed widespread corruption involving millions of rands drawn by SSA handlers to pay these operatives – money that was allegedly embezzled.

According to the transcript, the SSA had a “duplicate” internal register for these operatives which Dintwe referred to as a “parallel internal structure”.

Even more alarming was Dintwe’s later revelation to the State Capture Commission that the Office of the Inspector-General of Intelligence shared the SSA’s IT infrastructure, including its internet server.

This enabled the SSA to potentially monitor any investigations into the agency or complaints made by the public against the agency.

Read more: Inside Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s State Security Agency-riddled Public Protector’s Office

Inside jobs

A case in point is the recent uncovering of an offer of assistance by Dr Vusi Mhlongo, executive manager of the Moses Kotane Research Institute, to Zuma’s MK party in lodging an unproven claim that the 2024 election was rigged.

In that instance, government staff and executives had publicly endorsed, campaigned for and had attempted to assist MK to grow its numbers, an investigation by the ANC into its constituency offices revealed.

Then there is the allegation that the chair of the South Africa Human Rights Commission, Chris Nissen, had manipulated a report, choosing to ignore evidence that linked Zuma and his family directly to the July 2021 riots. More than 300 people died and billions destroyed in infrastructure and stock.

Read more: An internally fractured SAHRC muddies the waters over Zuma’s suspected link to 2021 riots

Daily Maverick revealed in November that the original version had drawn a “clear line” between Zuma’s incarceration and the violence, but this had been removed, primarily at the insistence of Nissen, who is a former ANC Western Cape chair, colluding with commissioner Philile Ntuli.

Lame horse

Those who have experienced the sharp end of the rogue intelligence stick (or sticks if you include crime and military intelligence) speak with one voice – the SSA as it exists, should be taken out back like a lame horse and shot.

“It should be built up again from scratch,” our source in the industry said.

There is no doubt that there are dedicated, law-abiding, experienced and qualified officials employed by the SSA, and hopefully these will not face the chop.

Zuma’s successor, President Cyril Ramaphosa, promised in 2022 to reform the SSA and return the agency to its pre-2009 era of a separation of domestic and foreign branches, each led by a director-general.

However, experts have warned that the SSA’s locus in the Presidency brings with it even more danger of abuse and lack of accountability should another Zuma-like president occupy the seat.

The ubiquitous Arthur Fraser

In an interview with Vuyo Mvoko in 2021 after the release of the Zondo Commission report, Arthur Fraser, then still director-general of correctional services, admitted that its findings were “largely accurate”.

Read more: Fatal blow to Mkhwebane and EFF as court sets aside intelligence report at core of investigation into SARS ‘rogue unit’

These were that the Gupta family, colluding with Zuma, other senior state officials and agents had infiltrated almost every state institution, including SARS, the SAPS, Eskom, Transnet, SAA and Prasa and had stolen R57-billion in public funds from South Africans.

Fraser was correctly reminded by Mvoko that the Gupta family had been able to operate openly because intelligence had been ignored and that surely Fraser must have been aware, as DG of state security, of the detrimental effect of their dealings on the country.

“From a personal perspective I may have had concerns about evaluating the relationships. And that should not be seen as if I am protecting anyone. You see, I like to deal with facts. I don’t want to cast aspersions,” Fraser replied.

Clearly 200,000 Gupta emails retrieved from a hard drive leaked to the media in 2017 and confirming years’ of investigations by seasoned journalists did not count in Fraser’s view.

Also testimony to the Zondo Commission corroborating the Gupta/Zuma nexus should have nailed it for Fraser, but, ever the spook, he opted to evade the question.

Fraser instead blamed the mess on a “lack of continuity” and the revolving door of DGs and ministers over the years.

“You need continuity in order to disrupt projects,” he said.

Both Fraser and Zuma’s state security minister, David Mahlobo, have been singled out as key implicated officials in almost collapsing the state.

Mahlobo is still an ANC member and currently the Deputy Minster of Water Affairs in Ramaphosa’s cabinet.

Fraser has maintained that he knows “his truth” and denies any culpability for enabling a vast network of spies, initiating projects ranging from surveilling civil society, the media, individual journalists and political opponents and training SSA agents as journalists. Student movements were infiltrated and leaders monitored and watched.

Van Loggerenberg is one of those individuals who believes the SSA is due for a complete overhaul.

“We were up against a powerful coalition of criminals, politicians, tax evaders, state intelligence operatives and corrupt individuals within law enforcement,” he recalled.

This cost many their jobs, they were isolated and “hunted” by the State Capture network.

“Even though parliamentary oversight committees were fully aware of these matters, they too did nothing…

“The most disheartening aspect is that not a single person responsible has ever been held accountable. Many remain employed in government or continue to enjoy financial success, living as if nothing ever happened.

“This extends to professionals, legal practitioners, large companies and pliant journalists who all played a role in the destruction of SARS and the careers of many dedicated individuals.” DM

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