Leaky DA MPs should be removed from the intelligence committee
20 January 2016
The Office of the ANC Chief Whip wishes to confirm its unqualified support for the decision of parliament's joint standing committee on intelligence (JSCI) to investigate the leaking of confidential discussions of meetings allegedly by DA MPs who sit in that committee.
In their leaking of the committee's confidential discussions, the DA MPs spread malicious fabrications and disinformation in the media, thereby forcing the committee into an uncomfortable space of correcting the falsehoods publicly and openly discussing the confidential deliberations.
The business of the committee is conducted strictly under the joint rules and intelligence oversight act of 1994, which states that discussions within the committee are confidential and may not be divulged. Such parliamentary committees conduct their businesses privately anywhere in the world.
Recently, the DA spread falsehoods regarding the committee's meeting with the President, alleging that the President tried to unduly influence the process of the appointment of the inspector general of intelligence by Parliament. The committee, as part of its ordinary annual programme, meets the President once every quarter relating to the scope of its legislative mandate. Both the insinuations that the President summoned the committee and that he tried to push for a particular candidate are blatantly false.