Latest news with #StateSecurityAgency
IOL News
a day ago
- Politics
- IOL News
South Africa's National Security: Ntshavheni identifies coup d'état risks
Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said national intelligence identified coups as one of the risks and put measures to mitigate against it Image: Presidency Minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo named coup d'état as one of the risks the national intelligence had identified and take action against. Ntshavheni made the revelation when she was responding to the media when asked about the risks they had identified when she released the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and redacted National Security Strategy (NSS) for the sixth administration. In her response, she initially said they had listed the risks to the national security in the documents, but indicated that the risk did not necessarily materialise. 'You need to identify and mitigate against it. One of the risks is the risk of coup d'état. We have identified it and put measures to mitigate against it.' Ntshavheni also said they could assure South Africans that there was not anyone attempting to do a coup d'état in South Africa in the last few day or weeks. 'There has not been anyone attempting to do a coup in South Africa. We say that, not that there are no people planning. There are, but we continuously monitor them and make sure we deal with those.' She stated that the intelligence agencies were not the ones making arrests and that those making the arrests don't say it was intelligence driven. 'We rely on law enforcement agencies to make the arrests. We would have made the spade work,' Ntshavheni said. The minister was making the comments at a media briefing after tabling the budget vote of the State Security Agency (SAA) in the national Assembly. She had undertaken to make public the NIE and redacted National Security for the period between 2019 and 2024. Ntshavheni described the release of the two documents as 'a historic milestone in our democratic journey, one which speaks directly to the principles of national security, constitutional accountability, transparency, and national resilience'. 'The national security considerations dictate that we cannot release the current version of NIE and National Intelligence Priorities (NIS). Hence, we are publishing the NIE covering the period of the sixth Administration.' She explained that release of the documents was to help South Africans understand the mandate of the state security. She explained this work guides the work of SSA, adding that they wanted a conversation into the priorities on national security as it related to domestic and foreign matters set for the country. Outlining the NIE, Ntshavheni said it provided a consolidated, evidence-based assessment of the strategic threats, risks, and opportunities facing the nation. 'It is the product of collaborative inputs from across the national intelligence community under the tutelage of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (NICOC) as per the provisions of the National Strategic Act 1994 (Act 39 of 1994), and other strategic partners. It seeks to ensure that our national response to complex security issues, from illegal migration, espionage, cyber threats and transnational organised crime to climate security as well as domestic instability among others, is informed, proactive, and coordinated.' She also said the 2019–2024 National Intelligence Priorities were fully integrated with the priorities of the Medium-Term Strategic Framework with domestic intelligence priorities being to investigate threats to South Africa's sovereign economic and business capacity and capabilities emanating from both domestic and foreign actors and events, among other things. It also investigated activities related to terror financing that are characterised by vulnerabilities in the border security environment, exploitation of the cash economy, abuse of remittances, as well as the challenges presented by the new financial technologies and investigation and of syndicated criminal activities, including drug smuggling as well as human smuggling and trafficking. Ntshavheni said the National Security Strategy, endorsed by the Cabinet on 13 March 2024, outlined a whole-of-government, and with its publication, the whole-of-society approach to national security, by embedding intelligence at the core of strategic foresight, resilience-building, and crisis prevention. 'We should not be measured by the number of crises we managed but be measured by the number of crises not taken place. In the period between 2019 and 2024, outside July 2021 unrest, there have not been disruptive threats to the country,' she said, adding the exception was climate change. 'We have been working to give advice on the best mechanisms on areas affected by climate change to prevent future loss of lives.' She insisted that the National Security Strategy was grounded in the principle that national security was inseparable from human security, economic stability, democratic governance, social justice and above all national interest. Ntshaveni also said the release of the NIE, NIPs, and NSS was her commitment to building a modern, ethical, and professional intelligence capability, guided by law, oversight, and strategic foresight. 'This is part of our commitment to transform the sector to serve the Constitution, not partisan interests … Our national security response must be anticipatory, inclusive, and adaptive.' [email protected]
The Citizen
a day ago
- Politics
- The Citizen
Ntshavheni assures SA is safe after detected potential coup risk
'We have identified it and put measures in place to mitigate against it,' says Ntshavheni. Minister in the Presidency responsible for State Security, Khumbudzo Ntshavheni, has assured South Africans that the country's security is not at risk. In a shocking revelation while tabling the State Security Agency's budget vote for the 2025 financial year on Tuesday, Ntshavheni revealed that the security cluster had identified potential risks of a coup d'état in the country. Coup d'état Ntshavheni said the State Security Agency (SSA) and all relevant law enforcement agencies are actively working to prevent any uprisings or violent protests, similar to the July 2021 unrest. 'There is a potential risk of a coup d'état. We have identified it and put measures in place to mitigate against it. So, that's why we say to South Africans that there will not be anyone attempting to do a coup in South Africa. In the last few days or in the last few weeks, there has not been anyone attempting to do a coup in South Africa. ALSO READ: Dirco slams old travel advisory about terrorism in South Africa 'The security cluster is solid, and because the people are worried, that is why the president is concerned about national security, that is why the president gave short deadlines for the commission, and that should give South Africans comfort that security is a priority for this government,' Ntshavheni said. In a shocking revelation, Minister in the Presidency responsible for State Security Khumbudzo Ntshavheni revealed that the security cluster had identified potential risks of a coup d'état in the country. #StateSecurity @TheCitizen_News — 𝙵𝚊𝚒𝚣𝚎𝚕 𝙿𝚊𝚝𝚎𝚕 ⚡️ (@FaizelPatel143) July 16, 2025 Unrest Ntshavheni also dismissed claims of possible unrest, owing to President Cyril Ramaphosa's handling of the allegations by KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Police Commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi. At a press conference last week, Mkhwanazi alleged political interference in police operations, claiming that Police Minister Senzo Mchunu and Deputy National Commissioner for Crime Detection, Shadrack Sibiya, had meddled. These allegedly include issuing letters to disband a task force, halt crime intelligence appointments, and withdraw case dockets to Sibiya's office. SA safe Ntshavheni assured South Africans that ensuring the country is safe from any domestic threats remains Ramaphosa's key priority. 'I want to assure South Africans that the security cluster is solid and is able to do its work. There are men and women in various capacities who continue to work as patriots for the protection of this country, and there are men and women in the intelligence services or the intelligence community who continue to work to make sure that this country is safe.' Ntshavheni said her department was also addressing malfeasance within the intelligence services, as well as allegations of unethical conduct. NOW READ: Ramaphosa's response 'a direct spit in the face of our revolutionary forefathers' – Sisulu foundation
The Citizen
7 days ago
- The Citizen
Illegal dumpers caught near Plastic View after tip-off
Two individuals were caught in the act of illegally dumping waste in the area between Plastic View informal settlement and the State Security Agency in the east of Pretoria. According to Deirdré van Helsdingen, founding director of the Pretoria East Community Caring Forum, she was alerted by a concerned resident who reported the dumping activity. 'I received a message from a resident informing me that people were dumping waste in the area, which has unfortunately become a known hotspot for illegal dumping,' she said. Van Helsdingen said she immediately escalated the matter and was informed that Tshwane metro police officers were en route to the site. 'I drove to the location using the dirt road next to Mooikloof Ridge Estate and found a TMPD vehicle already on the scene,' she said. She added that a second TMPD vehicle soon arrived and assisted in intercepting the suspects as they attempted to flee. 'Thanks to co-operation from Mooikloof Ridge Estate, security footage was obtained that helped secure the impoundment of both vehicles used in the dumping.' She expressed gratitude to the TMPD for the swift response. 'This place where the dumpers were caught is a big concern for us; many dumpers usually dump there.' She added that Plastic View is also a big illegal waste dumping site. ' On July 5, we witnessed dumpers coming in at the boom gate at Plastic View and, after the driver got out and probably paid a bribe, the truck was allowed in to go and dump,' she claimed. Van Helsdingen said people usually dump at Plastic View. However, they are busy with a new action plan to stop the dumping there. Metro spokesperson Lindela Mashigo warned that illegal dumping is a serious offence that harms the environment, damages public spaces, and places an unnecessary burden on municipal services. 'It is not only irresponsible – it is illegal,' he said. Mashigo urged all residents and businesses to dispose of waste responsibly and use designated landfill sites or authorised waste collection services. He referred to the Waste Management by-law. 'Any person who fails to ensure that garden waste, special domestic waste, or bulky waste is properly disposed of within the prescribed timeframes in a manner that prevents health risks or public nuisance may face a fine of R5 000.' He added that individuals or companies who illegally dispose of waste by dumping, dropping, spilling or placing it in public areas outside designated municipal containers or authorised disposal sites may also be fined R5 000. In addition, Mashigo warned that anyone who allows or instructs another individual to dump waste illegally may be liable for a fine of up to R10 000. Apart from a fine, individuals dumping illegally can be prosecuted. He said people or businesses need to dump waste at approved landfill sites. Domestic landfill sites can be found at: – The corner of Molefe Makinta and Soutpan roads, Soshanguve – Molefe Makinta Highway, Ga-Rankuwa – Hatherley, Solomon Mahlangu Drive, Nellmapius – Zithobeni Road, Bronkhorstspruit. The metro also has nine garden refuse sites for the free disposal of less than 1.3 tons at: – Daan De Wet Nel Drive, Dorandia, Pretoria North – Koorsboom Street, Magalieskruin, Sinoville – 26th Avenue, Menlo Park – Japie Peens Street, Mountain View – Sytze Wierda Avenue, Philip Nel Park – Rooihuiskraal Road, Centurion – Kruger Avenue, Centurion – St Joseph Avenue, Eersterust – Alwyn Street, Waltloo The metro has two transfer stations in Cullinan and Mabopane at: – Lucas Mangope Road, Mabopane – Cullinan Road, Cullinan Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to [email protected] or phone us on 083 625 4114. For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord's websites: Rekord East For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram or TikTok. At Caxton, we employ humans to generate daily fresh news, not AI intervention. Happy reading!
TimesLIVE
07-07-2025
- Politics
- TimesLIVE
Integrity commission must investigate rot in SAPS — MP Ian Cameron
The chairperson of parliament's police portfolio committee has called for skills and lifestyle audits for senior police officers after KwaZulu-Natal police commissioner Lt-Gen Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi's allegations about the police minister's ties to the underworld and corrupt police officers. Speaking in parliament on Monday, Ian Cameron said Mkhwanazi's damning allegations have placed the focus on the lack of integrity in the police. He said an independent body must undertake lifestyle audits of all senior officers. 'Why do I say that? There's a huge question about vetting, security clearance, [and so on] in the senior ranks of the SAPS. 'We've asked questions regarding vetting and we often hear there's a backlog with the State Security Agency and therefore vetting is behind. 'There's not one member of the police portfolio committee who doesn't constantly question the lack of lifestyle audits, and the resolution of parliament last year that a skills audit must be urgently done. The allegations are not only damning to a few individuals. It indicates a systematic weakening of the police to enable corruption and to undermine the rule of law. Ian Cameron, chair of parliament's police portfolio committee 'I go as far as saying we need to go through an entire integrity commission to get to the bottom of the rot in the SAPS,' said Cameron. Mkhwanazi alleged on Sunday he had evidence linking police minister Senzo Mchunu and his associate Brown Mogotsi from the North West to businessman Vusimusi 'Cat' Matlala. Matlala was awarded a R360m contract from the police in 2024. He is in custody for the attempted murder of socialite Teboho Thobejane and her friend, who was seriously wounded in a shooting. Mkhwanazi said investigations have revealed Matlala is financially supporting Mchunu. Cameron said if the allegations were true it explained the police's ineffectiveness in arresting criminals. 'The allegations are not only damning to a few individuals. It indicates a systematic weakening of the police to enable corruption and to undermine the rule of law.' Urgent action was needed from President Cyril Ramaphosa against police officials implicated in wrongdoing. 'We cannot continue one day [more] with criminals masquerading as police. 'The president has the responsibility to implement an intensive investigation into the corruption allegations at [the] SAPS to protect and promote the credibility of [the] SAPS,' he said. On Sunday, Ramaphosa, who is in Brazil for the Brics summit, described the allegations against Mchunu as a matter of grave national security. 'It is vital that the integrity of the country's security services is safeguarded and the rule of law is affirmed,' Ramaphosa said, calling on the affected parties to exercise discipline and restraint. 'The trading of accusations and counteraccusations threatens to undermine public confidence and sow confusion.'
Daily Maverick
02-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Maverick
Same same — how State Capture has become SA's greatest export
As Trump wipes away American history and redoubles down on thought crimes, he'd be horrified to know that the ANC has done it better, which is to say worse. Of all the ANC's masterstrokes — and believe it or not, there have been a few — the capture (and subsequent erasure) of history is perhaps its most successful. Without a past, there is no future — just an eternal now, a limbo that represents political stasis. And as dynamic as South Africa may seem if you have your nose jammed in the news, this is indeed a country of stasis, a country where new ideas and genuine transformation die before they are born. Because the ANC has captured history — it is, after all, the 'liberation party', and that's all there is to know — there is no point in revising history, because it's meant to be forgotten. Take the Zondo Commission. Remember that billion-rand boondoggle? Four volumes stuffed with the nightmare legacy of Zuma era corruption, and the results? Not much. The complaints are simple: all of that taxpayer money blown, and not a single meaningful prosecution. But that is to miss the point. As the political commentator and playwright Richard Calland has noted, 'State Capture was something that was really significant. And yet there was a real danger that we moved on too fast from it, and the lessons were not learned, were not digested. And then all the work that was done to defend democracy was kind of wasted. And it was a huge effort to protect the institutions and the rule of law. And I think, although full accountability hasn't happened yet, that it was a significant effort to defend public democracy from private State Capture.' And yet, the Zondo Commission Report should be required reading — the first thing placed in the hands of a kid hitting Grade Zero, in picture-book form. This, after all, is the story of how the world is hijacked. It's an epic, a fairytale, a parable. It's also universally applicable, at least as far as democracies are concerned. The Zondo Commission tells a linear story: how a state is captured, and corruption formalised, by a norm-breaking executive and its private sector enablers. President Jacob Zuma, who was manifestly and obviously a thief, became a viable candidate to replace the establishment figure Thabo Mbeki because he wasn't Thabo Mbeki. His shortcomings were overlooked because it was time for change. The change he offered — a populist spin on African nationalism — was the only thing that would keep the ANC, and therefore the country, from imploding. Or so we were told. In educational and intellectual terms, Zuma was not a Harvard University business school graduate. But he was at least as unethical and rapacious as one. A spy by (forced) vocation, he employed his louche paranoia as a tool against his enemies. He effortlessly subverted the State Security Agency, using it as a money funnel and a battering ram to enrich his cronies and undermine his enemies. His benefactors were brought into the fold to act as middlemen in the flow of funds from the state to state-owned enterprises and their private sector contractees. Then, Zuma went for the National Prosecuting Authority, and followed that up with attacks on other law enforcement agencies — a very simple procedure, given that the executive has the final say over who runs these institutions. He made foolish choices to head the Public Protector's office and the Constitutional Court, but they were his choices to make. By doing this, he signalled that it was open season for corruption, and that shame no longer had a role to play in moderating political behaviour in South Africa. There are other forebears of the 21st-century style of kleptocratic state vandalism. They include Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Viktor Orbán in Hungary and, of course, the OG, Vladimir Putin in Russia. But no other country has 4,000 pages of testimony breaking down exactly how the system works. In this, the Zondo Commission Report is perhaps the most important piece of political literature written in the past 25 years. And outside of Ferial Haffajee, how many South Africans, let alone foreign political observers or analysts, have read the whole thing? From a certain perspective, Zondo is a blueprint for how an empowered and unembarrassable executive performs a coup on his or her own country. There are clues in Zondo for how the 21st century has gone so horribly wrong, and hints at how to fix it. *** If liberal Americans knew what they were doing — and they don't — they'd see South Africa as a bellwether, as a warning. This isn't a Zuma equals Trump comparative thing — this goes far beyond individual personalities. Instead, they'd understand how corruption becomes entrenched — how it underpins, and then entirely supplants, ideology. As in South Africa, in the United States, special interests long ago hijacked anything resembling a functioning democracy. Here, the Guptas were avatars for private parasites latching on to the state and leeching it dry. In the US, corruption was driven through the Supreme Court, which has proved almost gleefully amenable. The biggest moment was the Citizens United ruling in 2008, which effectively allowed unlimited corporate spending in election campaigns. From there, it's been relatively smooth sailing. In recent years, while much of the focus was on the repeal of Roe v Wade and the end of female bodily autonomy, Trump's Supreme Court has done two things. First, it's allowed the executive almost monarchical power. And second, it's made bribery — or, rather, 'gratuities' — legal. You don't have to be a genius to see how this leads to a culture of extreme corruption, and it has. The end of Joe Biden's disastrous term led to a slew of pre-pardons of family members, which slithered into Trump 2 and the Zuma-like strip-down of the state. Congress, ostensibly a lawmaking body, stares on gape-mouthed as Trump rewrites the American order in the Oval Office. The lower courts have held up what might be considered the rule of law, but at this point it's largely vestigial. Trump is so empowered that he's now very literally rewarding corruption. Take the case of Paul Walczak, a medical executive and tax cheat who made an application for a full pardon, which Trump ignored. Until Walczak's mother showed up at a million-dollar-a-plate fundraising dinner, where she hobnobbed with the Republican glitterati and scored her son a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's pay to play, and there's no longer anything ambiguous about it. *** Zuma's genius, as with Trump and his minions, is to make graft ideological. The infamous Bell Pottinger misinformation campaign, which reintroduced White Monopoly Capital into the South African parlance, situated corruption and anti-constitutionalism as a transformation project — as a means to empower the previously unempowered. In essence, this was a 'screw the elite' project, which conveniently ignored the facts of power distribution in South Africa, while exploiting the very real economic disparities. Likewise, the Trump ideology comes down to little more than Fuck The Libs. This is a deplorable uprising, the upending of snooty Harvard/Yale/Columbia shitlibs (which again ignores the specifics of who is currently in power in the US). This is emotion as ideology, a vacuous project of rage-baiting driven by the neo-Bell Pottingers on the likes of Elon Musk's X. 'So loud and quiet at once, ideology becomes a substitute for mood,' wrote the novelist Joshua Cohen. And the mood in the US is dark and rebarbative. The capture of the state by special interests — by the billionaire class and the corporations who will exclusively benefit from the revolution under way — is misinterpreted as fascism. But this is silly. The performance of authoritarianism is secondary to the flood-the-zone-with-sewage approach to governance, which hides the formalisation of corruption. No one bothered to call Zuma a fascist — it simply didn't matter. He worked for his family and his friends and benefactors, and no one else. It was a simpler time. It should hopefully be obvious that rebuilding a functioning state in the wake of State Capture is nearly impossible. The centralisation of corruption under Big Men like Zuma (and Trump) inevitably gives way to a violent contestation when they leave office. This fragmentation is lethal and destabilising, and it breeds nostalgia for the good old days of the God King. Which is where South Africa finds itself now. As Trump wipes away American history and redoubles down on thought crimes, he'd be horrified to know that the ANC has done it better, which is to say worse. The rest of the world should take note: it's not fun digging out from under ideology-as-mood. Very little is left to build with. But it always pays to remember that State Capture is an elite project, prosecuted from the top, that benefits the wealthy and powerful. The rest of us are just suckers and cannon fodder. DM
