ANC is suspect number one when it comes to political murders

(Parliamentary debate: Urgent call for intervention by the South African Police Service and intelligence structures to address politically motivated killings, including the killing of Zulu and other traditional leaders)

Dr. Pieter Groenewald FF Plus leader

24 November 2023

Political murders are nothing new in South Africa. It has been a serious problem for a long time with fingers pointing mostly at the ANC as suspect number one.

A report dating back to 2013 indicates that at the time, more than 450 political murders had already been committed in KwaZulu-Natal alone.

Experts, such as Raymond Suttner, remarked that assassinations, among other things, have become the norm for the ANC and its allies when making decisions about leadership and access to wealth.

In 2016, the then Secretary-General of the ANC, Gwede Mantashe, said, "The reality is that appointing candidates as councillors is always a matter of life and death."

A high-level review panel into problems in the security and intelligence structures under the former Minister of Police, Sydney Mufamadi, brought serious irregularities to light in 2018.

The report found, among other things: “With divisions starting to form in the ANC from around 2005, there has been serious politicisation and factionalisation of the civil intelligence community based on the factions in the ANC.”

From around 2009, there has also been a clear doctrinal shift in the civil intelligence community away from the Constitution and other legal prescripts.

The merging of the National Intelligence Agency and the country's secret services to form the State Security Agency (SSA) was a monumental mistake.

It did not take place in accordance with formal policy changes entailing parliamentary and public oversight.

The intelligence community's actions were shrouded by a cloak of inappropriate secrecy which undermined oversight and accountability, and opened the door for blatant criminality.

This resulted in the large-scale exploitation of resources and the SSA, in effect, became a convenient source of funds for those in and around the community.

The country's intelligence structures were and still are captured. The abovementioned reports have been on the table for years and yet no steps have been taken to address the situation.

Issued by the FF Plus, 24 November 2023