It also ignored the dangers posed by neglecting human security, and not many members of the executive, at all levels of government, appreciated the meaning of the warnings raised in the different NICOC reports.
AHEAD of the deadly July unrest, the executive largely ignored warnings by the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee (NICOC) about the dangers posed to the security of the State by not attending to a number of challenges gripping the country.
It also ignored the dangers posed by neglecting human security, and not many members of the executive, at all levels of government, appreciated the meaning of the warnings raised in the different NICOC reports.
This is according to the expert panel tasked with probing the events leading to the July unrest released this week. The cost of the unrest to the country’s economy amounted to about R50 billion.
The context in which the unrest occurred included:
The weakness of State institutions generally, high unemployment, with youth unemployment above 70% and no consistent, continuous plan to address this challenge,
Inherited high levels of poverty and deep inequality;
Rampant corruption at various levels of government;
The frustrations caused by the Covid-19 restrictions;
The jailing of former president Jacob Zuma also played a part in the mayhem which first started in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal before spreading to the neighbouring Gauteng.
The combination of the social challenges would be a recipe for constant instability under ordinary circumstances, as pointed out by NICOC in its 2021 forecasts, said the panel chaired by Professor Sandy Africa.
“NICOC constantly warned about the dangers posed to the security of the State by not attending to these challenges. Add to that the dangers posed by neglecting human security. However, it appeared that not many members of the executive, at all levels of government, appreciated the meaning of the warnings raised in the different NICOC reports, and accordingly largely ignored them.
“The need to stop corruption in government and start addressing the needs of the people kept being kicked down the road, like the proverbial can,” the panel said in their report.
Chaired by an Intelligence Co-ordinator, the NICOC brings together the heads of the different services and reports to the Cabinet or president.
It consists of the Co-ordinator for Intelligence, the Director-General of the State Security Agency, the Director or Head of the domestic intelligence division known previously as the National Intelligence Agency and the Director or Head of the foreign intelligence division known previously as the South African Secret Service, among others.
The NICOC co-ordinates the intelligence supplied by the members of the National Intelligence Structures to it and interprets national strategic intelligence for use by the State and the Cabinet.
But neither does it or the Co-ordinator for Intelligence have the power to compel government departments to align the strategic and business plans with the national intelligence priorities (the “NIPs”) that it puts out annually.
The co-ordinated intelligence provided by NICOC in 2020 included the impact of violent protests on authority of the state presented to the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
“The National Security Council (NSC) had not been sitting regularly before July 2021, despite the warnings given by NICOC that 2021 was going to be a particularly volatile year. This is concerning, given that it was clear that there was heightened mobilisation for protests, as well as periodic outbreaks of violent protests throughout the first half of the year.
“As the tug-of-war around the Constitutional Court case of former president Zuma unfolded, tensions kept rising, especially on the political front. The failure of the National Security Council to meet regularly is only partly mitigated by the fact that the security structures played a supportive role to the National Coronavirus Command Council (NCCC),” said the report.
Chaired by the president, the NSC sits at the apex of government structures in matters of national security and is responsible, among other matters, for the approval of the National Security Strategy, and the National Intelligence Estimate and the National Intelligence Priorities.
“The question that remains is whether the NSC has, subsequent to the riots, sat down to conduct a deep analysis of what happened, why it happened, who was behind it, what their ultimate goal was, or is, why the country faces constant instability, and related questions.
“We could not answer these questions because we failed to meet with ministers serving in the NSC collectively, though we asked. We met individually with the ministers of Police, Defence and State Security. We had no access to intelligence products, again after asking for such. What we can conclude is that the National Security Council, as a structure, does not seem to have received any clear, direct intelligence about the impending violence prior to it happening.
“Once the NSC met and received full briefings from NatJoints, it acted appropriately, but this was much later than would have been expected.”
While considerable amounts of early warning intelligence were generated, these reports did not always come to the attention of the decision-makers who should have been kept abreast of them, said the panel.
“It must be said equally, that the security services, and this is by their own admission, were unable to predict the form that the potential violence would take. They were, in short, outwitted by the planners, and were just unable to keep up. This suggests that they need to go back to the drawing board and recalibrate their intelligence collection capacities,” said the panel.
It recommended that the NSC must take the lead in security policy co-ordination and the NICOC’s role in strategic intelligence co-ordination needs to be affirmed.
“Most important of all, government, at all levels, must seriously attend to the socio-economic challenges facing the country. We will be failing in our duty if we fail to express the profound frustration from, in particular the civil society, business and security sector delegations we met, that the government is not paying sufficient attention to this matter. The internal contradictions within the ANC are impacting negatively on governance matters and need to be resolved,” said the panel.
Stellenbosch University security expert Dr Guy Lamb said: “It’s quite important that there have been changes in the State Security Agency. What the report indicates is that our intelligence services are not up to the standards that they should be and that there are internal factional battles within the ruling party that have affected the intelligence agency. That needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.”
Cape Times
