Cape Town - Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) chairperson Jerome Maake has confirmed he had received approval from the House Chairpersons of the respective Houses of Parliament to embark on an inquiry into allegations of intelligence failures by the intelligence services.
The inquiry follows the recent deadly unrest which occurred in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng last month.
Maake said, after the JSCI engaged with the intelligence services on July 15-16 to perform its oversight role as outlined in the Constitution and the law, the need for the inquiry emerged after the committee received full briefings on the unrests from the intelligence services.
The inquiry will only be confined to the mandate of the JSCI as contained in the Constitution, the applicable legislation and Joint Rules of Parliament.
A statement said that unlike other parliamentary committees, the JSCI conducts its activities in closed sessions as guided by the Intelligence Services Oversight Act 1994, (Act No. 40 of 1994), not all information pertaining to the work of the committee may be disclosed to the public. However, some information will be contained in the Annual Report of the JSCI to be published soon.
“The High-Level Review Panel report reflects the challenges in the intelligence services and what needs to be done. More importantly, the Legacy Report of the Fifth Parliament also indicates the same challenges.
“The JSCI is, however, concerned with the slow implementation of the recommendations and has expressed its position to the appropriate implementing authorities.
“It is for this reason that several special meetings were held in Pretoria with the Minister of State Security and the State Security Agency (SSA), even at the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic as reflected in the Annual Report of the JSCI which is going to be published.
“The committee continues to urge the SSA to implement the recommendations without delay and to continue reporting on a quarterly basis,” the statement said.
Political Bureau