Chairperson, in his book titled A man called Intrepid, Sir William Stephenson addresses the issue of national security in the following manner:
Among the increasingly intricate arsenals across the world, intelligence is an essential weapon, perhaps the most important. But it is, being secret, the most dangerous. Safeguards to prevent its abuse must be devised, revised and rigidly applied. But, as in all enterprises, the character and wisdom of those to whom it is entrusted will be decisive. In the integrity of that guardianship lies the hope of free people to endure and prevail.
This quotation, read with section 198 of our Constitution, in essence typifies what we are about. It also explains why we are here today. Our role in this Parliament is to ensure that the South African taxpayer receives value for money from our intelligence services and agencies, whilst at the same time we must ensure that the enormous power placed in their hands is not abused.
Like others who spoke before me today I take this opportunity to pay tribute to all men and women of our intelligence services who strive to ensure that we can all sleep peacefully without fear of threat. They do so unheralded, unsung and usually unknown.
The hon Minister in his speech today said that 16 years into our democracy the White Paper on Intelligence needs to be reviewed. Hon Minister, this announcement is opportune and most welcome. It brings me to the point that I want to make in my speech today. Much has been written and commented on around what is called the Ministerial Review Commission. As a committee we have not really had an opportunity or a platform to give our side of the story around this commission's report until now.
First, as a brief background, it was made clear to the committee that the commission was an initiative of the executive or Cabinet. Despite our scepticism and a fair amount of concern, the committee opted not to object to it or to oppose it. When the commission finally completed its work, as parliamentarians, we all expected a report that would follow the normal conventional processes, including its tabling in Parliament.
Instead, the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence was astonished to learn that copies of this report had been made available to certain media houses. The Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence's, JSCI, astonishment quickly turned into disappointment when certain members of the media, the former Minister of Intelligence, Mr Ronnie Kasrils, and a member of the commission, Prof Laurie Nathan, accused the JSCI of not fulfilling its duties, for not considering the report and for not carrying out its recommendation. This is a perfect example of how not to deal with an official inquiry of this nature.
However, noble and well-intentioned as its goals and objectives may have been - and hon Minister, we trust that you have taken note of this - you cannot demand that a parliamentary committee consider and implement the recommendations of the report that was tabled at the Mail and Guardian. The reason is that you show absolute distrust and disrespect for people who have been elected to carry out the work. I find it offensive that, whilst you completely ignored the laid-down processes and procedures and failed or refused to formally place this report before the joint standing committee, you then publicly criticised us for not considering the report. The hon Maynier seems to find that favourable.
We have also been reliably informed that aspects of this report that was leaked to the media were still classified. Now the hon Maynier has no problem with that. If this is true, and we have no reason to doubt the veracity of this information, it places the authors of this report in an extremely invidious situation.
Chairperson, let me address some of the issues raised by hon Coetzee. Very early in my membership of the ANC I was approached by Cyril Ramaphosa and he had this to say to me, "You are very effective in raising and highlighting problems, but you are very ineffective in putting forward solutions". Listening very carefully to hon Coetzee, very few, if any, solutions came from his speech except, perhaps, if I understand him correctly, that everything should been drawn over. There should be no secrets. One is tempted to believe that there should be no intelligence services in South Africa.
Now, a very important point for hon Coetzee to remember is that the rights contained in our Constitution, which were fought for by the likes of Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu and O R Tambo, are not absolute. National legislation referred to by the hon Coetzee already exists in section 32 of our Constitution. That legislation is called the Promotion of Access to Information Act, and it was signed into law on 2 February 2000.
The integrity of South Africa's system of identity documents is crucial to our national security. Anything that negatively affects or impacts on the system constitutes a threat to our national security. It is with in this in mind that for some years now we have posed the following question to the Minister of Intelligence and to the heads of our intelligence services: Does the Department of Home Affairs constitute a threat to South Africa's national security? Thus far, the answer to that question has been "No", notwithstanding the endemic corruption and bribery within that department.
It was encouraging, therefore, to see the hon Minister of Home Affairs, Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, concede on national television that the Department of Home Affairs has indeed become a threat to national security. One is even more heartened and encouraged by the steps she has taken to address the widespread corruption within her department. The hon Minister deserves nothing but praise for her efforts in this regard. [Applause.]
I say this, Chairperson, for the following reasons: It is common knowledge that two foreign nationals in the not too distant past entered South Africa illegally. They then proceeded directly to an official at the Department of Home Affairs who had been identified by them and obtained South African identity documents in exchange for cash. With those documents they applied for visas and travelled to Britain. On arrival in Britain those two nationals were detained by British authorities.
The upshot of it is that the British authorities place very stringent conditions on South Africans travelling to Britain, and quite rightly so. I admit that the British have every right to do that. The South African system had been seriously compromised.
Now, in the not too distant past we learnt from the media that two senior members of Hamas were assassinated. Later it transpired that the assassinations were carried out by members of Israel's Mossad. It then later transpired that those two members of Mossad had obtained British travel and identity documents and indeed had landed on South African shores.
We had a situation where his Excellency the British Ambassador to South Africa appeared on television contextualising the decision by Britain to impose the strict condition that they had on South Africans travelling to that country. Would it be fair for us to expect him to do the same now that they formally handed British identity documents and travel documents to members of Mossad who travelled via South Africa because they were being pursued by international law enforcement agencies?
I leave that to you to answer. I have my own views on the matter. Perhaps hon Coetzee will now begin to understand why we have intelligence services. However, it brings into focus the good work the honourable women and men of our intelligence services carry out on a daily basis. Thank you. [Applause.]