Thank you, Chairperson. Hon members, as you know, I'm not a member of this committee, and so I have the liberty to speak more freely!
I want to be more philosophical today, and start off by telling you a story of the young Philippine woman, Lucinda David, who is a fantastic debater. In a speech to explain the value of debating, she states that so many times when we are debating issues, we talk past each other or just agree to be politically correct.
Then she goes on to share the story of when she went to one of the war- stricken provinces of the Philippines. The lights went out in the hall where she was speaking. Some of the soldiers came up to the stage. She was scared, but then one said to her: "Today you have taught us that it is more powerful to fight with words - we have left our guns outside." Believe me, I have left my guns outside today! However, for the sake of the debate I need to say a few words.
State security can never be compromised to favour anyone, and should never allow individuals to think that they can rely on the forces of intelligence to protect them when they become corrupt and powerful. That is why the late Joe Matthews found in 2008 - with good reason then, and nothing is new in this business - that state institutions were being abused, and therefore recommended steps to be taken to ensure that those in the employment of the state did not act to promote any party, any individual or any faction.
The sad part is that we know now that this report was roundly ignored and today it has still been possible, through the well-planned infiltration of domestic intelligence, for recent events to set the scene for instability, to the ultimate detriment of democracy and service delivery. No-one should ever have the power to manipulate the levers of power on the level of intelligence in such a way as to compromise the impartiality of state intelligence.
Ranjeni Munusamy wrote about the Gupta brothers in the Daily Maverick. I'm sorry to mention their names, but unfortunately I have to. She said, and I quote:
'How could this have happened?' The answer is rooted in debacle in the Department of State Security two years ago ...
It was mentioned by the hon Stubbe.
... when the former intelligence heads tried to warn government that the Gupta brothers posed a possible threat to national security. But their investigation was stymied, leading to them losing their jobs.
Maybe the Minister can tell us more about this incident. Was there a systematic attempt not to use state security and intelligence to protect the interests of the country against the undue influence of individuals? This country can never become a commodity of a group of individuals or a company that, through well-connected relationships, freely use their influence to subvert the country's clear rules.
We have seen this happening too many times in world history and in our own history. You see the regimes that have allowed this to happen, where eventually people will use power and the manipulation of intelligence to remain in power. But, if you allow it to happen too many times, this behaviour by the state seems almost to be normal and, as we see from reactions, it becomes acceptable, and the ordinary good official or public servant stops challenging it. Then those who have been witnessing a wrong and not stopped individuals who subvert the rules of the country are as guilty as those who have ordered it.
Moloto Mothapo, the ANC parliamentary spokesperson, wrote in his defence of the passing of the Protection of State Information Bill, and I quote:
Every constitutional democracy in the world has a moral and constitutional obligation to keep certain information secret for the protection of its people and its democracy.
That is true, but that can only be the case when there are no forces compromising state security and in fact doing, without a challenge, what others do not think is even possible or correct. That is why Gitta Sereny warned us in her book when she wrote:
What Hitler taught us, to an extent greater than anyone else in history, though we would become aware of it again in Vietnam, we would become aware of it again in apartheid South Africa, is that a licence to kill or a licence to do what you want creates a momentum which defies moral sensibility and discernment, and destroys the capacity of the individual to distinguish between good and evil, or, and this is perhaps even worse, to act against a recognised wrong.
Hon Minister, it's your duty to make sure that this does not happen and you must be seen to act decisively against those institutions that misuse the undue influence they have wrongly acquired. The Guptas are part of those and you cannot be ignorant about their doings. They brought this country to the brink of being a banana republic. I assume that your department had the intelligence and could have saved us and them from this embarrassment. The question remains: Why were they not stopped? Only you can answer that. I thank you. [Applause.]