Pretoria, October 2005, Week three
BY THE MIDDLE OF OCTOBER 2005, around the time I had opened the new NIA archive building, the inspector general (IG), Zola Ngcakani, completed what was to be the first phase of his investigation. The venerable veteran delicately placed a number of hefty files on my desk.
‘Minister,’ he began, in his quietly spoken manner, ‘there can be no doubt that Masetlha and his two subordinates have been up to some serious misdemeanours.’ He gave no hint of any weariness of heart. He was a kindly, gentle fellow, and I sensed his type would wish no pain or suffering on youngsters, particularly those such as Bob Mhlanga, who could so easily have been misled.
The IG painstakingly explained his method of investigation, his team’s interviews with the principal officials and those involved in the surveillance, including interaction with the complainant, Sakumzi Macozoma himself, and their studying of all relevant reports and documentation. He dealt at length with the NIA trio’s story that the surveillance operation was motivated by Macozoma’s links with a visiting foreign agent.
He turned to his findings and recommendations.1
He found that the surveillance operation against Macozoma was unauthorised and unprocedural. The reasons for the operation were without substance and merit. Attempts had been made to mislead the minister and the investigation team as to the true nature of events. The surveillance operation was unlawful.
Based on the findings, it was recommended that I consider disciplinary steps. The report identified the need for a policy review that included the rules governing the way in which surveillance targets were decided upon. During his investigation, the IG was informed about a NIA project known as Project Avani, which entailed the monitoring of service delivery protests and the political climate in the country. On the information at hand, he believed that it was necessary to ascertain whether this project was in any way linked to the unlawful surveillance operation.
In studying the report over the next couple of days, I found it disturbing to read how the three senior officials had stubbornly stuck to the account they had presented to me of seeking to track and uncover the identity of a visiting foreign services agent whose mission was to determine the likely successor to President Mbeki. The story was full of holes and contradictions, the timeline did not make sense, their ‘legend’ or ‘story’ just did not add up. Besides the question of truth, the botched nature of the surveillance operation alone had brought NIA’s reputation into question. Interviews with members of the surveillance team showed that they had been hastily assembled and poorly briefed and prepared.
It was shameful that senior officials had made the field commanders of the operation on the ground responsible for their own failures and had promptly suspended them – a clear case of making scapegoats of the foot soldiers. If I had any pity for the young Mhlanga and the invariably courteous Njenje, whom I had always liked, this was dissipated by the way they had sought to shift blame onto the shoulders of their subordinates, quite possibly at the behest of their boss, Masetlha, in an apparent effort to assuage ministerial concern. Such thoughts aside, what we really wanted was a truthful account of what had been going on, and I was prepared to give them every opportunity to come clean.
On the basis of the IG’s report, the trio were suspended on full pay until such time as they truthfully accounted for the operation. I commenced with Mhlanga and Njenje, receiving them separately in my office. The IG, seated beside me, politely read out his findings. I gave each, in turn, the opportunity to reconsider their accounts and assist us in getting to the truth or face suspension while further investigations were conducted. But both Njenje and Mhlanga remained po-faced and obdurate.
It was Masetlha’s turn to face the music a few days later in the presence of President Mbeki at his residential office. I had informed him that he needed to see the president to discuss the outcome of the IG’s report as it related to him. Masetlha was visibly shaken as I read out his notice of suspension, on full pay, following on the heels of the IG delivering the findings of his report. He too was obliged to cooperate with the IG’s further investigation and, like the other two, under strict order not to visit his workplace. Masetlha had been banking on the president to protect him.
I knew from Mbeki that Masetlha had rushed to present his own report to him the previous day. I presumed this would have depicted me as a sinister actor in a foreign conspiracy. Whatever Masetlha’s story, I simply learnt from Mbeki that he had rejected Masetlha’s tale out of hand.
Any allegations about my connections with foreign intelligence agencies would have been discarded since that was part of my job. I had thoroughly briefed Mbeki about every interaction I had with foreign services from East to West. The only time I had met with senior Mossad officials was in his company when a sinister Israeli government duo had attempted to convince him that Iran was on the eve of producing a nuclear weapon. We quite correctly dismissed their facile claims. (To date no such weapons have materialised.)
The NIA’s Project Avani, to which the IG had drawn my attention, came to the fore. This was linked to the report Masetlha had delivered to my home and was meant to be an investigation into the public unrest directed against local authorities and its causes. It would be important for the IG to ascertain the origin of the emails that had surfaced in that report. What was disturbing was that it appeared that Masetlha had extended the terms of reference of Avani in early July 2005, without informing me or seeking my approval. This involved the physical surveillance and intercepts (voice and mail) of political, media and state officials, utilising NIA’s satellite facilities. That kind of operation was a regression to apartheid-era practices, which had no place in a democracy and which I had sought to ensure should not creep into the security services under my watch.2