ANC hesitant over Scopa probe of spooks’ finances

The ANC appears reluctant to have parliament’s public finance watchdog the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) investigate the finances of the country’s intelligence services.

On Wednesday, ANC MPs suggested Scopa may be venturing into the terrain of another powerful parliament committee, the joint standing committee on intelligence (JSCI), which deals with intelligence matters and meets behind closed doors.

President Cyril Ramaphosa told Scopa last month he had no knowledge of the direct use of State Security Agency (SSA) funds for the ANC’s internal campaigns. He suggested Scopa should question the SSA instead.

At its meeting to adopt a plan of action on how to deal with allegations the SSA may have been used as a vehicle to channel public funds for purposes of party political campaigning and other unauthorised purposes, ANC MP Bheki Hadebe warned that Scopa could be accused of overreaching.

He spoke at length about how it was a constitutional mandate of the JSCI to oversee the intelligence services. This included reporting to parliament on administration, financial management and expenditure of the three agencies in terms of the law, he said.

The three agencies are criminal intelligence (police), defence intelligence and the SSA.

Hadebe said the law further empowered the JSCI to obtain certain reports including audit reports compiled by the auditor-general, any audit report of the financial statements of all three services and any report in relation to the affairs of these services and their budgets.

He also noted that MPs who sit on the JSCI are subject to top security clearance before they can become members of the committee and should they fail to attain top security clearance, they are unable to serve on that committee.

Hadebe suggested Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa, of the IFP, should meet the chairperson of the JSCI Jerome Maake, of the ANC, to discuss and chart a way forward on the matter.

He said there was nothing Scopa could do without the approval of the JSCI in terms of the nature of that committee as it relates to national security.

“We don’t want a situation where we are going to be viewed or perceived as overreaching. By reading what is in the constitution, and in the joint rules, it might come across as if we are overreaching,” he said.

Other ANC MPs agreed with Hadebe, but the DA objected.

The DA’s Benedicta van Minnen said Scopa’s mandate was slightly different as it looks at public monies.

She said it was clear that the JSCI was not paying enough attention to spending of public money as evidenced by the confusion between the interests of the country and the interests of certain elements of a political party.

Scopa’s interest was not in the substance of what intelligence and SSA are doing, but in the public accounts and spending of public monies.

“It is in its interest to ensure there is no abuse in departments and what is permissible to be in the public space is in fact so. It is not for us to decide what our limits are, it is for us to test what we can do,” said Van Minnen.

Her comments drew an objection from the ANC’s deputy chief whip Doris Dlakude who said to insinuate the JSCI was not focusing on its work with regards to the intelligence agencies’ finances was undermining the work of that committee and the MPs deployed there.

She said Van Minnen didn’t know about that committee’s work because it met behind closed doors. “The work of that committee is behind closed doors, hence you don’t know what that committee is doing,” she said.

Hlengwa gave the parties represented in Scopa a week to make written submissions on the matter.

He defended Scopa saying the committee did not see itself as better than other committees but that its special role in the pursuit of ensuring adherence to the constitution, public finance management act, municipal finance management act, National Treasury regulations and related financial management rules should be understood.

Hlengwa also reminded his colleagues they had agreed to pursue the matter consistent with the legal advice they received from parliament’s legal services and from the MPs’ own inputs when the committee decided not to invite Ramaphosa to appear before it.

“It is us who said we will look into the financial management of the SSA. We are not looking into the policy and operational matters. We won’t compromise our integrity by doing something that’s outside our mandate,” he said.

While the JSCI has a specific mandate to look into the accounts of the SSA as provided for in law, this was not an exclusive mandate, he said.

“In other words, there is no reason in law which precludes Scopa from considering the financial statements and related matters of SSA as per the oversight of the committee,” he said.

He indicated Scopa may close its meetings with the SSA for purposes of conducting financial oversight and if the entity can demonstrate that the disclosure of information could reasonably be expected to prejudice the security or international relations of the country.

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