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Madam Speaker,
Mr Deputy President,
Members of Parliament,
Invited guests and,
Ladies and gentlemen,

In presenting this second budget vote of the intelligence services since my appointment in 2001 I would like to preface it by acknowledging the debt of gratitude I owe to each and every member of the services, for their patriotism, their commitment and their dedication. I want to thank my long-suffering staff for having achieved the elusive goal of a 28-hour day. My gratitude also goes to the DGs and their deputies for their support and commitment. I regard myself lucky to have them serving with me.

My gratitude also goes to the oversight committee - and to the past chair - the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs. Thank you for all your hard work. I want to congratulate you and wish you well. I have beaten down the same path. Just hang in there! Very soon Minister Buthelezi is going to be the acting President as he is always called upon when the Presidents are out of the country. You can look forward to this; these are exciting times at Home Affairs when you run the country. Just make sure you don't make forays into foreign lands am I in toe. However, these are times when you can tell the world that you are the Deputy to the President, drop the acting for dramatic effect and savour the wonder in their eyes!

To Siyabonga - congratulations on your appointment. We worked well together.

Now, to the subject of the debate. On 28 November 1987 the South African Airways Helderberg crashed off the coast of Mauritius, killing all 159 people who were on board. At the time enquiries could not produce any explanation to the families and friends of those who died. The crash of the Helderberg has remained a conundrum that regularly rears its head, producing no explanation beyond normal mechanical failure. But for many the crash was just a South African mystery.

Like an earlier unsolved puzzle. On a cold winter evening on 11 July 1963 the South African Special Branch pounced on a group of unsuspecting, with hindsight, amateur freedom fighters at a farm called Liliesfield in Rivonia. The rest of the story is history - no mystery there except for the people involved.

Right up to the time of their death, Honourable Joe Slovo and Honourable Govan Mbeki had been passionately trying to solve the questions raised by their arrests that resulted in the Rivonia Trial. One day I chanced upon these two deep in conversation in the old Parliamentary dining room, sighing in their bewilderment, trying to figure out who sold them out. In sheer exasperation the Honourable Joe Slovo finally urged Honourable Govan Mbeki: 'But Govan you have a good relationship with Kobie Coetzee, why don't you ask him directly?

We will never know if Honourable Govan Mbeki asked Kobie Coetzee the question or whether if he did ask him what Kobie Coetzee told him.

You may well wonder why I am raising these matters. Of what significance are they? Here is their significance: one of our responsibilities is the classification of all secret information in the hands of the state. Those that have been relentlessly looking for answers have come knocking on our doors and have been very disappointed to find that we have not yet been ready to assist, because in truth, most of the secret documents were destroyed before 1994, that which remains - its ownership lies between several departments.

To expedite and respond to the now growing demand for access to these documents we have now set up a Task Team consisting of ourselves, the Department of Justice, and Arts, Culture, Science and Technology. The Task Team will ensure that all secret documentation in the hands of the state are assessed now and declassified in line with their status.

We hope that we will then be able to assist those who have a right and seek to have access to this information whose declassification date may have expired.

We cannot promise that they will find the answers beyond of what we know of the Helderberg. We don't promise that they will find the answers to the Rivonia tip-off or any other unsolved security related intrigue. Because as I have indicated unhappily, a massive volume of state records were destroyed in the 1980s, as was confirmed by the TRC.

What we do promise is that the Task Team will in the shortest period of time - no later than six months - detail the criteria that will guide the process of declassification of information and disclosure of that declassified information. In this process we will also be declassifying those documents that were used in the TRC depending on the date of the handing over of its final report and the security nature of the documents. We hope that this will then answer any lingering suspicions that the TRC documents have come to an unhappy end.

This process is a bit too late for Honourable Joe Slovo and Honourable Govan Mbeki but I am certain that it will be a treasure trove for a number of our people who are researching into our past or some budding Friedrich Forsyth or some enterprising journalist.

Madam Speaker, the intelligence community operates in a very complex environment. Complex because we are forever pushing back the boundaries of old standards and norms of dealing with intelligence in order to cope with the ever-changing environments of our time. At every step, as we open up, we wonder if what we have done has been the correct thing to do. We open up and wonder if the space is large enough for us to communicate and be understood by our clients and audience and yet small enough to protect that which needs to be protected in an environment such as ours.

This is the ever-present paradoxical reality that confronts us as we continue our interaction with the public.

Since the tabling of our budget vote for 2001/2, I am very pleased, Madam Speaker, to announce that with the resources we had in hand we had been able to make progress in a number of areas that we prioritised.

Chief amongst these priorities is the enhancement of the capacity of the Services. This is the stated objective of the government as outlined by the President in his State of the Nation Address. This capacity is absolutely essential for the Services to cope with the increased burden of their responsibilities that range from crime intelligence support, urban terrorism through to drug trafficking and economic intelligence.

As part of our commitment to upgrade our human resources we have completed the restructuring of the IA. Madam Speaker, we closed down the IA last year in order to restructure, remodel and to upgrade it. We have read of late from the media that the Western Cape's perception of the closure was that the IA was incompetent. That is not the case. But then out of the Western Cape, there is always something new*.

We are grateful, for the support we have received from the Ministry of Public Service and Administration regarding restructuring in the IA.

The restructuring is complete and we give notice that we will be piloting a Bill through Parliament that will legally establish the IA as a section 3 Public entity. We are very excited at these developments because the new Academy will provide the Intelligence Community with a loyal, competent and versatile cadre-ship that will serve the South African people with excellence, commitment and professionalism!

Last year, Madam Speaker, I appointed a Task Team which now has concluded its work. The team discovered that weaknesses in our conditions of services had led to the weakening of the competitive edge of the services and their ability to attract and retain the best officers and support staff. We intend to request Cabinet to move onto new Conditions of Service that would be on par with the quality of an intelligence officer employed by the Services, the working environment and the value system of a security environment.

In addition, I have established a Review Commission to investigate and to provide recommendations on the environment under which members of the intelligence community are working. The commission has already begun its work and is expected to conclude its investigation in August. Should you therefore see a smiling face anywhere in the country and wonder where it came from, you can be sure that that would be my intelligence officer, whose cover by then no doubt would have been blown by the smile on his face!

Each member of the services has committed themselves to be the best they can be. I on my part have committed myself to providing the kind of environment that would allow them to thrive and indeed allow them to be the best they can be, to be the best the country deserves.

Beyond having the right people in the right places within the services, the right equipment is of the utmost importance. In order for the services to attain a competitive advantage over foreign intelligence structures, as well as domestic counter-intelligence threats, it is important that technological resources be applied in accordance with the need. Furthermore, we are in an information age that places an imperative on the security arms of the state to be steps ahead of the rest.

The application of the resources I have talked about will enable us to counter a number of threats, which despite the relative stability we have achieved, could trigger destabilisation if not attended to. First, the sustainability of the current relatively favourable national security picture will depend to a large extent on the way the country's economy performs. The economy therefore remains one of the most important pillars of stability within the country. The depreciating value of the rand at the end of last year against major currencies of the world highlighted worried us in the intelligence community, (I've since been told that I should not have unduly be concerned) and highlighted the need for intelligence to play a pro-active role in the security of all national strategic initiatives, the derailment of which can result in the undermining of the government's goals. In this respect the intelligence community has begun to build the necessary capacity to monitor and advise on economic intelligence issues. This will be one of our major investments for the next two years. We have to jealously guard what we have achieved, our economy is doing well, that's what my counterparts tell me, and we have to keep it that way.

Some of the challenges regarding the protection of South Africa's economic interests within the domestic and international arena include threats related to (economic and industrial espionage), serious economic and financial crimes (including money laundering, financial scams, complex fraud offences) and deliberate acts to discredit or undermine foreign and domestic confidence in the economy.

On the political front, despite significant progress, there remains some cause for concern with regard to stability in KwaZulu-Natal; i.e., taxi violence, and gang-related violence in the Western Cape. We have conveyed our concerns regarding unlawful activities of students in tertiary institutions and we are glad that Minister Nqakula has taken action.

Espionage activities have also increased considerably, demonstrating that foreign intelligence services regard South Africa as a priority, and the developing world, especially in terms of the country's role and position in the continent and the Southern Africa region.

As we become a player in the international arena, and as we become a people to be reckoned with, our security stakes rise. We have to ensure therefore that our security is at a level that is commensurate to what it is that we want to protect.

The proliferation of private intelligence organisations also represents a security and potential stability-related concern. This is due to the potential for these organisations to be used by foreign intelligence services as fronts for espionage purposes; attempts to obtain access to classified information for their own purposes; illegal actions such as phone tapping; and the recruitment of former and even serving members of the government security establishment. This is what underpins our determination to ensure restraint of trade for a period for any intelligence officer.

In relation to crime, which remains one of our most immediate security concerns because of its negative impact on the quality of life of our people, we now have streamlined our support to the South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Scorpions and recorded some major breakthroughs and successes in numerous cases. The full details of positive trends in crime reduction that were recorded during 2001 in the National Crime Combating Strategy, were provided by the President during the State of the Nation Address in February.

The Services, Madam Speaker, are presently intensifying co-operation with all law enforcement and security agencies to tighten the flow of intelligence relating to crime. In addition, in order to improve the quality of information NICOC is strengthening its production systems and is in the process of redefining its feedback mechanism from clients. As part of strengthening this structure I have appointed a new Deputy Co-Coordinator, Mr Chabalala.

We are continuously working on our co-operation and the Minister of Safety and Security and I are very happy with the progress we have made.

Madam Speaker, we will be embarking on a process of reviewing our White Paper. The White Paper on Intelligence was written and adopted shortly after we came into government. There is now a need to update this in view of subsequent developments in South Africa as well as in the world. A clear need was identified to elaborate further on the concept of human security, food security and environmental security. We have also learned a great deal while in government. Just last year, Madam Speaker, at about this time I was urging that the Services should move away from the downbeat Intelligence Officer identifiable by the holes in his soles. I'd hardly shut my big mouth when the very lack of this human intelligence capacity in the United States was identified as one of the failures that might have lead to the fateful September 11.

We have discovered that the integrity of our public institutions is being compromised through the disregard for document, physical and IT security. The recent break-ins at Denel and, horror of horrors, at the offices of the Auditor-General in Pretoria, indicate that we would need to go out with nothing less than evangelical fervour to preach on the need to upgrade our information security.

Because it is part of our responsibilities to safeguard our technological and economic advances, every break-in into a state department or parastatal with its attendant theft of software is a nightmare for us. We therefore give notice Madam Speaker, that we intend to ensure that the Minimum Information Security Standard (MISS) is made an enforceable regulation for all strategic institutions.

The protection of government information and the regulation of its release to the citizenry are fundamental to good governance. We have therefore recommended the appointment of a security manager by each department and public entity in order to remedy the weaknesses that have been identified. At the same time, we have ordered a complete and comprehensive review of the security of the executive members of government so that we ensure that the embarrassment of unwelcome brandy-guzzling visitors at Genadendal is put to an end!

One of the priorities we set for ourselves last year, Madam Speaker, was to restructure the Ministry to ensure that we can sharpen our efficiency and so that we can be of better service to our clients. We created two small units in the Ministry - one to give support to The Presidency and one to give support to our government clients. A great deal of media attention has been given to the support we provide to The Presidency. The work of these units has had a very positive impact in the promotion of peace and security in the continent and the strengthening of departmental relations.

For us this could not have come at any better time, for an examination, Madam Speaker, of all our present security concerns reveals that the intelligence services increasingly have to deal with new threats. The focus of the services the world over changes to suit the need or the vulnerabilities of the time. For us in Africa one of our great vulnerabilities is conflict. Conflict over scarce resources, made more scant by the conflict itself - conflict that other parties outside of ourselves as Africans, are only too happy to see escalate.

Within the SASS we have resolved that we can turn ourselves into agents for good and give our services to ensure that we can turn the tide for good for our continent. We have the capacity and the commitment to protect ourselves against this scourge. We can detect it and give early warning should it raise its ugly head and we have the capacity to make a difference to any attempt at conflict resolution. This country has benefited from the efforts of the intelligence community leading the way to ending our conflicts. It ushered an era where intelligence could direct its enormous resources for good.

The attack on the United States clearly demonstrated that the conventional threats of the previous world order, which were generally associated with governments acting in accordance with well-understood rules of engagement, and which could be detected by conventional intelligence capabilities, are steadily being replaced by emerging new threats. These new threats, by contrast, are mostly non-governmental, non-conventional, dynamic or random, non-linear, with no constraints or predictable doctrine. These new threats are at present also almost impossible to detect in advance through conventional intelligence methodology. They are often of an asymmetric nature, in that they arise from unconventional sources and wield influence and impact disproportionate to their actual strength and capabilities.

It is therefore important for us to understand that as we live in an increasingly globalising world, we are actually also talking about the globalisation of problems. In other words, as the world shrinks into a global village, the security problems of countries beyond our borders become our own security problems.

The terrorism that was visited upon the people of the United States is the same terrorism that was visited against the people of Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. This means that our security has to take this greater problem into account.

Finally, Madam Speaker, the marginal adjustment to our baseline allocation from the Minister of Finance, for which we are grateful, will help us achieve some of our goals. The funds will help us to advance our interests and goals further by increasing the presence of our representatives abroad, recruiting skilled personnel, and expanding the range of our products and clients.

It is important that South Africans understand that the absence of any threat to their national security is the result of continuous hard work by members of the Services. The debates raging in the US about whether the services had given sufficient warning to prevent the September 11 attacks are very instructive. They underline the human paradox that it is after a major calamity of this nature that serious attention is paid to any pivotal aspect of normal democracy, security, so mundane, so taken for granted, but once compromised its effect can be so fatal.

It is in this context that in the tabling of this budget vote I take the opportunity to pay a special tribute and to congratulate all the members of my services for their dedication and the diligence they show in their work. We sleep easy at night because they watch all over us.

I would like to also take this opportunity to honour all those who have died unknown and unthanked in the Services from Zakithi to Joe Mababi to Muziwendoda Mdluli to Phumla Nkala.

Further, as we develop a total concept of national security we want to bring to your attention the aspect of your personal security by highlighting that as we gear ourselves to protect any threat we depend on you to be patriotic enough to defend yourself in your most intimate engagement. We urge you to be patriotic and fly the South African flag!

I thank you.

Issued by Ministry of Intelligence Services

5 June 2002