Analysis: Major spy overhaul underway in South Africa

Moe Shaik

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
In July, Laurie Nathan, a former member of South Africa’s ministerial Review Commission on Intelligence, warned that a steadily declining culture of accountability in South Africa’s spy services was threatening the country’s constitutional order. Last week, based on the Commission’s findings and policy suggestions, the country’s minster for state security, Siyabonga Cwele, announced a “major restructuring” of South Africa’s security services. Already, the first generation of pro-ANC intelligence agents, who staffed the post-apartheid South African intelligence apparatus, is on its way out. The departures of Manana Manzini, who until recently directed the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Loyiso Jafta, of the National Communications Centre, and Taki Netshitenzhe of the Electronic Communications Security, were accentuated by the retirement of ANC “superspy” Hilton Tim Dennis, who headed for many years the NIA’s Counter Espionage unit. The overhaul, which includes the appointment of Moe Shaik, former member of ANC’s intelligence wing and a close friend of Zuma, is aimed to mend the severely damaged political state of the country’s intelligence and security establishment, as well terminate the rumored abuses of the system by rival ANC factions spying on each other’s members. Some, however, remain skeptical, believing it is too late to change the culture of abuse in the security services, which has persisted since the days of apartheid. Last March, Sheryl Cwele, the wife of Siyabonga C. Cwele, South Africa’s Minister of Intelligence, was implicated by South African and Brazilian authorities in an international drugs trafficking case.