The first steps to pass Budget 2021 have already been taken, on the back of ANC numbers in the House, when the fiscal framework was adopted on 10 March 2021.
One of the most startling aspects of Inspector-General for Intelligence Dr Setlhomamaru Dintwe’s testimony at the Zondo Commission is that for some MPs, the revelations wouldn’t have been startling at all.
Dintwe, who testified on Wednesday, has been in the job for four years and repeatedly informed Parliament’s 11-member Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) that members of the State Security Agency (SSA) and Crime Intelligence were brazenly stealing cash designated for covert operations. They either kept it for themselves, used it to fund factions of the ANC and even funded parallel intelligence operations.
Legitimate intelligence services require cash. Agents use it for covert ops to pay sources and for services that require a level of secrecy. SSA and Crime Intelligence members abused that system because, well, they knew they could get away with it.
Dr No: Inspector-General Setlhomamaru Dintwe, silent se dailymaverick.co.za - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from dailymaverick.co.za Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
She died a day after her daughter Thato died.
The cause of death is still unknown, but the ANC s Gauteng legislature chief whip pointed that the deaths could be related to Covid-19.
ANC MP Jacqueline Mofokeng died on Thursday - a day after the death of her daughter Thato.
In a statement, ANC chief whip Pemmy Majodina said she received the news of Mofokeng s death on Thursday.
Mofokeng became an MP in the Sixth Parliament in 2019 and served on the Joint Constitutional Review Committee, the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence, the Portfolio Committee on Justice and Correctional Services and the Portfolio Committee on Police.
It seems Dintwe’s focus on actually doing his job put a target on his back.
He said “concerted efforts” to remove him from office came within weeks of Bongo being appointed Minister of State Security. Evidence he presented suggests Bongo – who was arrested on charges of corruption in 2019 and later acquitted by controversial Cape Judge President John Hlophe – and his then director-general, Arthur Fraser, launched a twin-pronged attack.
Bongo, according to Dintwe, tried a legislative approach to negate his oversight powers, while Fraser tried to hound him out with unfounded and illogical accusations. He happened to have been investigating a complaint in which Fraser played a central role, filed by DA politician John Steenhuisen.