Suspended National Intelligence Agency (NIA) Director General Billy Masetlha has accused President Thabo Mbeki of taking sides in the political battle raging in the ruling African National Congress.
The claim appears in a hard-hitting affidavit lodged by Masetlha in a high court bid to overturn his suspension. His battle for his post appears to be part of a wider struggle by ANC factions for control of the state security apparatus.
In his application, Masetlha accuses Mbeki of being partisan: ”I believe that the president has bowed to political pressure and taken sides against me,” Masetlha claims, noting that he has been a long-standing and loyal civil servant.
He also slams Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, alleging that Inspector General of Intelligence Zolile Ngcakani ”has been acting at the dictation of the minister, who has his own agenda and motives for wishing to see me lose my position and discredited”.
Masetlha has asked the Pretoria High Court to overturn his suspension, conveyed at a tense meeting with Mbeki, Kasrils and Ngcakani on October 20 last year. ”Notwithstanding the contention of the president, I have never been lawfully suspended from my position as DG of the NIA and am entitled to carry on acting as such,” Masetlha says in papers served on the Presidency last Friday.
Presidential spokesperson Mukoni Ratshitanga confirmed receiving the papers, but said the matter was sub judice.
In an affidavit that pulls no punches — at one point he accuses Mbeki of a ”departure from the truth” — Masetlha states: ”I fully appreciate that there are times when a head of state must take difficult decisions without regard for the feelings of those affected by such decisions. But that does not justify the president’s conduct against me. I have been humiliated and dishonoured. Indeed, my entire family has been humiliated and dishonoured by the conduct of the president.”
Masetlha argues that the decision to suspend him was not taken by Mbeki, but by Kasrils, who, he claims, has no legal power to take such a step. He also attacks a subsequent attempt by Mbeki to regularise this by signing a presidential minute on November 15 retrospectively confirming the suspension.
Masetlha says the president’s action is invalid ”because it was taken by the president for the ulterior purpose of saving himself and the minister the political embarrassment that would be caused if it became known to the public that the minister had … purported to suspend me from the NIA without any legal power to do so”.
Masetlha also argues that Mbeki merely rubber-stamped Kasrils’s decision and failed to carry out the steps necessary for a legally valid instruction.
The affidavit gives new insight into the circumstances of Masetlha’s suspension — and the legal jousting over Ngcakani’s attempt to investigate his conduct.
Ngcakani was charged with probing the surveillance of businessman Saki Macozoma, a top secret NIA operation dubbed Project Avani, and the ”hoax e-mail” saga — purportedly implicating top government and ANC officials in a plot to support one faction in the ANC succession battle and undermine Masetlha.
Ngcakani’s report was handed to Kasrils last week, but has not been made public.
Masetlha says that in early September last year Kasrils phoned him to say Macozoma had complained that he and his family were under NIA surveillance. Kasrils requested a report and later told Masetlha he had also asked Ngcakani to investigate.
Masetlha has recorded his explanation of the Macozoma affair in an ”in-camera affidavit”, citing the secrecy provisions governing NIA operations.
”I reported to the minister in the letter dated the 9 September 2005,” Masetlha notes.
”I was questioned by the IGI [inspector general of intelligence] during the morning of 28 September 2005… On this occasion Ms [Kerenza] Millard, the minister’s legal adviser, participated in my interview …
”On 17 October 2005, I was called to a meeting with the minister and the IGI so that I could be informed of the findings of the IGI … Certain recommendations were read out to me … the minister said he was sorry but he had sent his recommendations to the president.”
Masetlha described his subsequent October 19 meeting with Mbeki, where he objected to Kasrils’s actions. ”I reported to the president that in my view the whole process of the IGI’s investigation had been flawed as the IGI had disregarded the evidence presented to him …
”I also mentioned that throughout the IGI’s investigation, the legal adviser to the minister had been present and had directed the interview by passing on notes and questions which the minister’s legal adviser thought the IGI and his delegates should put to witnesses interviewed at the investigation.”
However, the next day Kasrils, in Mbeki’s presence, read out a letter suspending Masetlha. Since then Masetlha has argued that his side of the story must be heard, but insisted he would answer questions only with his lawyers present.
Resistance to that demand has meant that Masetlha was never questioned on Project Avani or the e-mails before Ngcakani completed his report. Masetlha’s papers argue that this constitutes a fatal flaw for any further action against him.