How efforts to probe corrupt SSA members were always thwarted

Johannesburg- As pressure mounts on law enforcement to prosecute those implicated in the state capture project, evidence is emerging of how efforts by the Investigative Directorate (ID) head Hermione Cronje to investigate allegations of corruption at the State Security Agency (SSA) were thwarted.

Cronje resigned from the position last month out of frustration, not having successfully prosecuted a single case arising from the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector,
colloquially known as the Zondo Commission.

Acting Chief Justice Raymond Zondo released the first part of his report into state capture this week and took issue with the work on the prosecuting authority.

“The constitution vests the prosecutorial function in the NPA [National Prosecuting Authority] and therefore the failure of the NPA to have responded adequately, or at all, to the challenges of state capture points to a fundamental failure of a
sovereign state function,” the report reads.

However, evidence seen by Sunday World suggests Cronje and her team were not resting on their laurels and were actively pursuing those implicated by witnesses at the Zondo Commission, particularly on issues related to SSA.

For months, Cronje has without success been trying to lay her hands on crucial information related to how billions of rand in fixed assets could not be accounted for at the SSA; how a parallel intelligence network was set up to steal money from the agency, among others.

Part of the information related to the explosive testimony of former SSA acting director-general Loyiso Jafta, who in January last year laid bare numerous activities of malfeasance at the agency, which occurred during former president Jacob Zuma’s nine-year tenure.

Sunday World has seen a search and seizure summons that the ID issued to the SSA last year in which she demands information on dozens of rogue operations that included the siphoning millions of rands.

In a confidential memorandum, Cronje’s deputy, advocate Paul Jacobus Louw said that a high-level panel review into SSA (and headed by former safety and security minister Sydney Mufamadi) had painted a disturbing picture of an organisation beset by malfeasance, procedural transgressions and criminal behaviour.

“The testimonies of the DG of SSA (Jafta) and the SSA’s internal investigation team before the state capture commission further revealed serious malfeasance within the SSA, which borders on criminality and the capture of the agency by rogue elements from within and without, including the repurposing of the agency’s mandate,” he said in the summons, dated March 11 2021.

The ID summons caused a serious standoff – which nearly turned bloody – between SSA officials and ID officials when the latter wanted to raid the agency’s headquarters, Musanda in Pretoria, to seize the documents in March last year.

While Jafta consented to the raid, former SSA domestic branch head advocate Sam Muofhe blocked the move. Muofhe over a month later then obtained a legal opinion that said the ID raid was unlawful in that it was not authorised by a magistrate or a judge.

Ramaphosa in a written reply to DA leader John Steenhuisen parliamentary questions last month said: “The State Security Agency has just completed the appointment of an independent forensic firm to investigate all suspected cases of malfeasance, corruption and criminality in the SSA. This includes, but is not limited to, those revealed in the high-level panel report or the inspector-general of intelligence report.”

One of Cronje’s main interests are records in connection with the Pan Programme investigation and Project Veza investigation. In September 2009, an investigation allegedly ordered by then intelligence minister Siyabonga Cwele into the SSA’s Covert Support Unit (Pan Programme) indicated that there were grounds to institute disciplinary action and criminal action against some members who looted the agency.

Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence and the Office of the Inspector General of Intelligence (OIGI) as well as the Office of the Auditor General were briefed on the findings of the report. In June 2013, Cwele referred the matter to the OIGI, which produced two reports on the allegations.

“Reasons for lack of further action at this stage unknown,” the summons said.

In May 2018, former state security minister Dipuo Letsatsi–Duba established another investigation – Project Veza – into the covert structure of the SSA, the chief directorate special operations (CDSO). “However, limited progress was made due to challenges relating to access to information.”

In January last year, the Zondo Commission heard that Zuma’s close ally, Thulani Dlomo, had “unlawfully” established the CDSO within the SSA, which accounted to the former president and had secret funds for propaganda projects targeting media, NGOs, judiciary, and civil society, among others,hostile to Zuma.

Cronje, like Letsatsi-Duba, has been battling to get information on the Pan Programme and Project Veza.

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George Matlala