There is nothing in writing to prove this week’s state capture allegations against former president Jacob Zuma, the Zondo commission heard on Tuesday.
In fact, the state capture inquiry was advised that SA make it law that instructions from politicians to technocrats be done in writing.
This is the only way to stop illegal and unlawful instructions to administration staff in government departments and state-owned companies, said state security agency acting director-general Loyiso Jafta.
Jafta presented evidence of how the agency was brought to its knees between 2009 and 2018, mostly thanks to executive overreach.
What was worse, he said, was that most of the roles played by members of the executive, ministers of state security and then president Jacob Zuma to collapse the SSA were not in writing and therefore difficult to prove.
However, the lack of concrete evidence was not absence of evidence.
Among other things the agency had been unable to prove, said Jafta, was whether Zuma financially benefited from SSA coffers as claimed by some agents.
This was also true with the allegations that some judges were bribed by the agency to swing judgments Zuma’s way.
We have strong circumstantial evidence some of the money went to some of the members of the judiciary.
— SSA acting director-general Loyiso Jafta
On this one, said Jafta, there was “strong circumstantial evidence” that some members of the bench indeed accepted bribes from the agency.
“We have strong circumstantial evidence some of the money went to some members of the judiciary,” said Jafta.
“What I do not have, sitting here now, is absolute concrete evidence of that. Remember, all of these things, we are talking about cash transactions — money that is delivered to A and A delivers it to B and there are no receipts.”
The commission heard on Monday that former minister of energy David Mahlobo was personally handling this mission called “Project Justice”.
Jafta said that was a classic example of executive overreach in the operational matters of the agency.
And this executive overreach, he added, often manifested itself through illegal instructions.
In SA, it was not only a problem facing the SSA, but the entire public service.
“During the period under review of 2009 to 2018, there is a strong body of evidence presented to me where members of the executive regularly ran operations of the SSA. That would mean they handled sources and tasked them,” said Jafta.
“That inherently contains unlawful and illegal instructions. This problem is not unique to the SSA. It is fairly widespread, even in state-owned enterprises where representatives of the shareholder would usurp the powers of the board.
“In my view, policy instruments should be put together to prevent this from happening. For instance, you could say instructions from the executive must always be in writing. A framework for instructions to be in writing provides for certainty and for instructions to be auditable. This problem of executive overreach requires urgent attention.”
This problem is not unique to the SSA. It is fairly widespread even in state-owned enterprises where representatives of the shareholder would usurp the powers of the board.
Jafta said it has been a mountain to climb for him to undo the damage caused to the agency between 2009 and 2018.
But various reforms had been put in place to normalise the situation.
Among these was a directive that Jafta issued to recover monies owed to the agency by rogue “spooks”.
These were agents who had been credited with money running into millions through the temporal advance unit for operations.
But because impunity was the order of the day during the Zuma years, agents would elect to keep change and not submit invoices of how they had spent the money.
In this regard, R125m had been lost in the 2017-18 financial year alone, without accountability.
The abuses stretched further into assets and property of the agency.
Jafta said it was a headache to recover guns, ammunition, buildings and houses that belonged to the agency, but had unlawfully found their way into the possession of agents and outsiders.
Houses belonging to SSA were registered in personal names of its agents, some of whom had died, and their families were legally within their rights to claim ownership.
Some guns had been recovered, while some had not, and may be in use for criminal acts, said Jafta.
“We have not recovered all the firearms. It is quite difficult,” said Jafta.
On Wednesday the commission will continue hearing intelligence-related testimony from an anonymous witness.
