Johannesburg - Once a spy, always a spy, according to state security, which is employing retired spooks to assist with training the new generation, as well as with security vetting.
“There’s nothing wrong for State Security to look after its veterans. Nothing out there says we can’t look after or utilise them.
“They would not even be expensive. They already have a pension, they are patriotic,” State Security Deputy Minister Ellen Molekane revealed on Tuesday.
She was speaking at a pre-budget-vote briefing where it emerged that retired intelligence officers, through the Civilian Intelligence Veterans Association, are being employed to train State Security cadets at its academy and to assist in security vetting.
The Star was told that this recruitment is being done under the General Intelligence Laws Amendment Act, although related regulations are yet to be finalised.
The reactivated into service association members are being security vetted.
Earlier, State Security Minister David Mahlobo set the tone.
“Don’t ever allow a spook not to be occupied (when they retire), what must they do with all the secrets? A spook is a spook. We’ll keep them occupied,” he said.
Saying he knew the budget, but it was “a blank” even in the documents circulated at the cabinet, Mahlobo delivered his budget vote about three hours later, sticking to his word that no one would ever know how much it was - even as DA MP Dirk Stubbe pointed out the absurdity of this.
The Budget documentation released in February shows at least R4.3bn was paid by the National Treasury to the SA Secret Services account.
But the official line at the budget vote was on intelligence operatives’ contribution to ending the recent spate of xenophobic violence - which Mahlobo maintained was “an industrial dispute that became a security matter”; protecting the rhino, as part of South Africa’s natural heritage; and a “pipeline” of young recruits into State Security as its focus is moving to “non-traditional security threats” like energy, forced immigration and “ascendary (sic) of non-state actors in drug trafficking, proliferation of arms and ammunition, money laundering, financial crime and illicit economy”.
Political Bureau