Budget Vote for Department of State Security Agency By Hon. David Mahlobo MP, Minister of State Security Parliament of Republic of South Africa, Cape Town, 26 April 2016

Honourable Chairperson of the Session
Chairperson of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, Hon. Connie September
Honourable Ministers
Deputy Minister of the State Security, Hon. Cde. Ellen Molekane and other Deputy Ministers
Honourable Members of Parliament
Honourable Members JSCI
Director-General of the State Security Agency, the entire SSA Leadership and SSA membership
The President of the ANCYL, Cde. Collen Maine and NEC members
Leadership of the ANC, Leagues, Alliance and Progressive Youth Alliance
Mahlobo and Molekane Families
Distinguished Guests
Comrades and Friends
Fellow South Africans,

Context

Honourable Chairperson and Members, this year we are celebrating twenty two years of our hard won freedom and democracy.  Our budget vote and policy statement is being delivered to this august house just a day before His Excellency President Jacob Zuma addresses the nation to reflect on the long road we have traversed.

The ANC led government as mandated by the majority of our people since 1994, reaffirms its commitment to the attainment of a national democratic society as envisioned in the Constitution of our land, the Freedom Charter and other founding documents.  Building a truly united, non-racial, non-sexist, democratic and prosperous society is a long and arduous journey which our former President Nelson Mandela spoke of when he said “Yinde lendlela esiyihambayo”.

This society could not just emerge on the dawn of our democratic dispensation but needed to be harnessed and built consciously by all the progressive forces of fundamental change as led by the ANC.

South Africa today is better place to live in than it was before 1994.  When we pause and look back we have recorded strides, just to mention a few- many state institutions have been transformed, instruments of accountability are in place, created thriving conditions for civil society, and recorded massive gains in respect of the improvement in the quality of life for our people.  However, we are the first to admit that more still needs to be done.

This year we are celebrating 40 years since the historic June16, 1976 SOWETO uprising.  Our icon, the leader of our movement, President O.R. Tambo eloquently articulated the value of young people when he said: “A country, a movement, a people, that does not value its youth, does not deserve its future”. Indeed the country and her people needs to deepen its value to the youth and harness its potential. The youth in our country, like young people everywhere in the world, are searching for genuine ideals and values which they can live by, and for revolutionary ways to win them

This year we shall be celebrating sixty years of the historic women’s march of August 9, 1956 to the Union Buildings. This is an important epoch and one of the most historic events in the struggle for freedom and women’s rights in South Africa. Looking back today we can safely say in part we owe our freedom to these heroines.

But our journey is far from complete as reflected in the petition: “We shall not rest until we have won for our children their fundamental rights of freedom, justice, and security”. Poverty, unemployment and inequality remain stubborn.

Over the last few months we have witnessed incidents of major concern to the life of our South African society.  We cannot claim to be truly free when insidious and blatant racism still exist in our society.

We cannot claim to be truly free when racism still rears its ugly head in our institutions of higher learning, in the media, in the private and public sectors, in the boardrooms and racist elements are becoming bold and arrogant.

As South Africans, we should refuse to be part of this barbaric, backward thinking and inhumane belief that some races are inherently superior physically, intellectually, or culturally to others and therefore have a right to dominate them.

If racism is allowed to manifest itself like in other parties, institutions and countries where racists are harboured and sought refuge, it poses a security risk to our national security. It is a stark reminder of our painful past experience; it creates profound racial tensions and conflict in virtually all aspects of life in a society.

This year we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the signing into law of our Constitution. We must forever be grateful to our forebears for bequeathing to us a Constitution that provides for amongst other things, bill of rights, institutions including a number of security structures whose role is to protect the very constitutional democracy that is the structural foundation of our nation.  We are a constitutional democracy and envy of the world.

Our national democratic society is founded on the respect for the human rights, the rule of law, good governance, independent judiciary and independent media.

Many policy analysts and NGOs have largely viewed the promotion of human rights and the promotion of national security as having inherent tensions. Some they treat the two goals as mutual exclusive either you promote human rights at the expense of national security or protect national security while overlooking human rights.

Finding a balance on how to effectively address security, while respecting human rights, constitute a key challenge of our times. The reality is that the two are interdependent and mutually reinforcing.

Global and National Security Environment

Honourable Chairperson and members, as security agencies we continue to discharge our mandate as provided for in our constitution and other laws.  The global security environment has taken centre stage for most states and South Africa is not an exception.

Globally we have a number of emerging threats that have been elevated in terms of our tradecraft ranging from countering international terrorism, radicalisation and violent extremism, economic meltdown, environmental degradation, forced migration, food security, unconstitutional regime change, colour revolution, non-state actors in drug trafficking, proliferation of arms and ammunition, money laundering, financial crime and illicit economy

Despite the deterioration of global security as security agencies we have concluded that we remain relatively stable as a country and the SADC region. However we remain vigilant because our national security threats do not play themselves in a vacuum but come into a sharper focus within a specific context.

In our own backyard for overtime now we have observed increased political contestation, governance challenges, and challenges of low growth scenario for our country and the world.

The geopolitics of the world wherein unilateralism, regime change, marginalisation of youth and minorities, political and religious dynamics, failure to resolve conflicts and market capitalism has lost its glowing spark. These are the challenges of our time.

We are hard at work looking at the current security threats that require a deep understanding of the actors and tactics involved, obtained through in-depth and robust intelligence capability and multivariate analysis.

Nations cannot secure their national sovereignty unless they assess the new emerging threats accordingly.

South Africa, therefore cannot take lightly any manifestations in our society and body politic that have the potential to advocate for unconstitutional change of government.

State and non-state actors are hard at work in certain parts of our globe using various role players to promote their agenda whilst undermining national security of various countries. These actors are in mass media, non-governmental organisations and community based organisations, foreign multinational companies, funders of opposition, religious and student organisations, prominent and influential persons and running covert intelligence networks to destabilise other countries who do not share a similar view as them.

Attempts have been made in various countries like Libya, Syria to mention a few, where a question of legitimacy and the very legality of these governments were raised to disrupt their stability. This has resulted in untold sufferings for many.   Some of these foreign agencies are hard at work to destabilise us working with domestic forces who are wittingly and unwittingly collaborating.

As a maturing constitutional democracy, we must be in a position to deal decisively with whatever challenges we face in our governance framework, whether it be economic, social or political issues. We must never yield to some domestic and international forces that might harbour intentions of creating conditions conducive to unconstitutional change of government.

South Africa remains a sovereign state and commands its territorial integrity.

Our Milestones and Priorities

Securing and managing South Africa’s borders

Illegal migration and the irregular movement of commodities remain a foremost challenge in all dimensions of securing and managing our borders. Our challenges remain because of the vastness of the land, marine and airspace borders, compounded by several challenges like corrupt officials, physical infrastructure weaknesses, inadequacy of our technology and poor coordination.

We are on track in the full implementation of government’s policy of the establishment of a Border Management Agency, which is currently led by the Department of Home Affairs.

We acknowledge the good work done by men and women of the Security Cluster who continue to apprehend syndicates that move illegal money, drugs and all counterfeits goods across our borders. The latest of these successful operations includes the Kopfontein border post with Botswana where drugs worth R80 million were seized as well as Lebombo border post where R54 million worth of heroin was seized.

Economic Intelligence and Diplomacy

Access to resources is likely to continue the economic conflicts if not skilfully managed.

In the past year we identified global illicit financial flows as a major security concern that knows no borders. South Africa is estimated to be losing over R80 billion per annum through illicit financial outflows. Illicit flows from Africa could be as much as US $80 billion per annum.   

This is approximately double the official development assistance (ODA) that Africa receives and, indeed, the estimate may well be short of reality as accurate data does not exist for all transactions and for all African countries.

This phenomenon has robbed our continent of its potential of meeting our developmental goals whilst other countries whose laws have provided for safe havens for these actors.

As a continent under the guidance of the AU and regional bodies more work is being done by our intelligence agencies including the relevant treasuries to mitigate the situation.

Our department continues to provide leadership with respect to training, technology and information within the structures of the African Union Peace and Security Council (AUPSC) such as the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA) and SADC.

We have registered progress in combating the multi-billion rand trade in illicit tobacco and cigarettes with a seizure of large quantities of illicit cigarettes in the region. We need to double our efforts in dealing with the same situation in our shores with the multi-agency task teams already at work.

We are continuously strengthening our partnership with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) in our effort to fight illicit economic activities. It is only by combining our forces that we can effectively dismantle criminal networks which need financial resources to flourish and expand.

We will continue to focus on Economic Intelligence, ensuring that we invest in capabilities that will allow us to respond accordingly and provide our government with the necessary support in its endeavours to grow the economy and enhance foreign direct investment.

Securing the Cyberspace

Honourable Chairperson and Members, the NDP commits government to improving “cyber security so as to create a secure dependable and reliable cyber environment”.

The latest information on cyber-attacks indicate that most attacks are no longer perpetrated by cyber geeks sitting behind computers, but rather by automated programmes which can run constantly with the aim of exploiting opportunities in people, governments, businesses and societies and alike.

This puts added pressure on all stakeholders to urgently find home grown solutions that will help improve the security of the cyberspace, ensuring that its use helps to improve the manner in which people do their business.

Following our successful first Cybersecurity Conference last year, which was attended by a wide range of stakeholders outside government, we are increasing our cooperation on a number of fronts.

An action plan has been developed as an outcome of this conference on areas of cooperation like development of policies; information sharing; research and development; building capacity for young cyber experts and civic education and awareness.

With losses running up to a billion rand annually due to cybercrime, we have established closer institutional relations with the South African Banking Risk Information Centre (SABRIC).

We have also finalised the National Critical Information Infrastructure (NCII) Policy whilst building our cybersecurity institutional capacity including enhancing our systems and solutions for both the cybersecurity centre and the Government Computer Security Incidence Response Team (CSIRT).

This work proved to be effective when the centre, in March, minimised the threat by some “hacktivist” who had threaten to hack a hundreds of government websites and cause untold harm to the delivery of services.

The Cyber security Bill has also been completed and presented to Cabinet, shortly it will be taken through the Parliamentary process ahead of implementation.

We will continue working closely with BRICS member countries and within the UN family.  Securing our cyberspace will ensure conditions for peace, security and development are enhanced.

Fighting Corruption

Honourable Chairperson and Members, confronting and rooting out corruption remains a central feature of this 5th ANC led administration, especially considering the negative impact it has on economy and it’s potential to erode the authority of the state.

Corruption poses a serious and direct threat to our reconstruction and development initiatives, good governance, service delivery, and ultimately stability, particularly at local level. We will continue focusing on corruption within the public service and private sector.

As the collective of the JCPS cluster we continue to implement measures to decisively deal with cases of corruption. In 2015/16, 163 government officials were convicted of corruption-related offences.

The Asset Forfeiture Unit (AFU) continues to ensure that criminals do not benefit from the proceeds of crime. In this regard, the AFU obtained 483 forfeiture orders to the value of R372 million. Recoveries totalling R356.9 million were obtained in terms of the Prevention of Organised Crime Act  which is  166% higher than the target of R134 million.

We embarked on the process of the prioritisation of government departments and state institutions to ensure the effective implementation the strategy.

We are also at the centre of creating the conditions of security within state departments and entities through the provision of counterintelligence awareness and training programmes aimed at raising the security competence of state employees.

We are on course in implementing our policy as agreed on vetting for all senior managers in the public service, supply chain management teams, officials working on critical infrastructure whilst extending the process to state owned companies; rotation of staff especially in the security cluster; investigate the possibility of a single vetting agency and conducting life style audits.  We will also push for innovative ways of improving the integrity of civil servants of key service delivery points and going after those who run away from being vetted.

Domestic Stability and Violent Community Protests

Our constitution in terms of section 17 of Chapter Two on the bill of rights makes provision: “Everyone has the right, peacefully and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions”. Many South Africans continue to enjoy these rights but there are those within various sectors like education, public transport, labour, civil society and political organisations that continue to undermine these rights by engaging in wanton destruction of property, incitement of violence, intimidation and loss of life.

Some of these protesters are undermining the authority of the state by engaging in acts that seek to provoke the law enforcement agencies hence some people have acted with impunity by killing members of the security agencies.

As South Africans, we should refuse to be part of this barbaric, backward thinking of some elements within our body politics and society by undermining other people’s rights and freedoms

Those of us who believe in our democracy and claim to be defenders of the constitution cannot remain silent when section 16 of constitution on the bill of rights is violated.

Section 16 (1) makes a provision for the freedom of expression, which includes— (a) freedom of the press and other media; (b) freedom to receive or impart information or ideas; (c) freedom of artistic creativity; and (d) academic freedom and freedom of scientific research.  However section 16(2) The right in subsection (1) does not extend to— (a) propaganda for war; (b) incitement of imminent violence; or (c) advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.

Those contravening these rights and freedom cannot be allowed to act with impunity and it’s the duty of the law enforcement agencies to ensure its realisation.

Countering Terrorism, radicalisation and violent extremism

Honourable Chairperson and Members, terrorism remains one of the major global security challenges of our time and a serious threat to international peace and stability, affecting every country and region in the world. 

The threat of terrorism has assumed greater proportions with attacks spreading to a larger geographical area and with consistent frequency.

Recent attacks in Brussels Belgium, Paris in France, and Jakarta in Indonesia, Mogadishu in Somalia and Ouagadougou Burkina Faso and Bamako in Mali are testimony to the continued threat the world is facing. No nation can act alone in dealing with this scourge.

Since the establishment of Islamic State (IS), terrorist groups have been evolving. Their motivations, financing and support mechanisms, methods of attack and choice of targets are constantly changing through the use of new and sophisticated recruitment tactics and funding methods, as well as attempts at gaining and controlling territory.

Additionally, the rise of the Islamic State (IS) has impacted on African terror groups by inspiring young recruits to join their cause as foreign fighters and to emulate the IS model in their respective regions.

We therefore remain concerned about the growing incidents of terror on the African continent and the humanitarian and regional security impact it has on countries, including South Africa. We remain concerned by the growing number of South Africans who are associating themselves with these terrorist organisations.

Domestically efforts continue to be undertaken to identify South African citizens who want to join terrorist groups and to prevent an expansion in this regard. In addition, we are working with certain communities to curb radicalisation and recruitment of our young people on false ideology.  Fighting radicalisation is a societal responsibility.  We need partnerships between civil society organisations, the private sector and communities to fight this scourge.

Promoting peace, security and development

Honourable Chairperson and Members, the prosperity and advancement as a country is intrinsic and inextricable link to that of our region and continent.

The security challenges in the various regions of our continent are an indication that there are new and unconventional threats that have necessitated more collaboration within various regions and other multilateral institutions through the AU to respond to the challenges.

We recognise that South Africa cannot be an island of prosperity and security in a sea of regional and continental instability.

The State Security Agency remains committed to continuing cooperation with its counterparts in Africa and the world and to combat the scourge of terrorism and extremism on the basis of South Africa’s own terror threat perspective.

In pursuance of the African Agenda, South Africa remains seized with peace-making efforts in countries such as Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lesotho, Libya, the Central African Republic (CAR) and South Sudan.  In this regard, our intelligence structures continued to provide support to Government in its efforts to bring about peace and security in Africa, both at bilateral and multilateral levels.

We have been hard at work in support of His Excellency President Zuma and his government with respect to international cooperation in order to advance our domestic objectives of growing the economy and creating jobs.

Honourable Chairperson and Members, in relation to the strengthening of our skills capacity and the professionalisation of the intelligence services, we have adopted an approach where our Intelligence Academy will have to be more flexible, innovative and responsive to the intelligence skills requirements of the State Security structures.

Conclusion

I wish to pay tribute to the serving men and women of the civilian intelligence structures, our veterans, the past and present leadership, as well as those who are no longer with us, for the dedicated and selfless contribution to our democracy, the well-being of our nation, the stability of our region as well as that of the continent.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank His Excellency President Zuma, the ANC leadership for the continued guidance and support provided to us as a Ministry and Department. Similarly, I would like to thank the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, the Ministry Staff and advisors, the Director-General of the SSA and the entire membership of the State Security Structures.

Lastly I wish to thank my family for the unwavering support.  I am heartily pleased that South Africans are responding positively to the call of making national security a societal issue. Once again lets be part of securing our sovereignty, territorial integrity, our people, infrastructure and national interest. Nawe uliphoyisa!!

We are charged with this enormous responsibility of ensuring South Africa is able to achieve its developmental objectives in a safe and secure environment. In our hands we hold the dreams, hopes and aspirations of future generations of this country. We dare not fail them!

I humbly submit this budget vote for the Department of State Security for your consideration and approval.

God bless Africa, her sons and daughters.

I thank you!!!

Issued by the State Security Agency, 26 April 2016