A bill signed into law by President Cyril Ramaphosa will see South Africa’s state security apparatus in future reside in two separate government departments.
The General Intelligence Laws Amendment Bill (GILAB), according to The Presidency, is the basis for significant reforms of the country’s intelligence services and will be accompanied by improved oversight and accountability. It, as the name implies, amends three acts passed since democracy – the National Strategic Intelligence Act of 1994, the Intelligence Services Act of 2002 and the Intelligence Services Oversight Act of 1994.
The new departments are the Foreign Intelligence Service (FIS) – responsible for foreign intelligence gathering to identify opportunities and threats to national security, and the Domestic Intelligence Agency (DIA) – responsible for counter-intelligence and domestic intelligence gathering to identify national security threats.
GILAB further re-establishes the SA National Academy of Intelligence (SANAI) and Intelligence Training Institute for domestic and foreign intelligence capacities, a statement has it.
The amendments, the statement continues, constitute implementation of recommendations of the 2018 Presidential High-Level Review Panel on the State Security Agency (SSA) and of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector (the Zondo Commission).
The law addresses concerns about bulk interception by intelligence services of internet traffic entering or leaving South Africa, by introducing new measures including intelligence services’ authorisation as well as intercept court reviews.
It also provides for administration, financial management and expenditure of the intelligence service entities to be in the oversight ambit of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) – a multi-party Parliamentary committee that, among others, processes public complaints about the intelligence services and monitors the finances and operations of the services.
The newly enacted amendments provide greater autonomy for the Inspector-General of Intelligence and the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee (NICOC) in making administrative and functional decisions.
