/ 3 July 2008

Kasrils: NIA hasn’t lost credibility

The National Intelligence Agency has not lost its credibility, Intelligence Services Minister Ronnie Kasrils said in Pretoria on Thursday.

”It is untrue that the intelligence agencies are puppets of the ruling party. They serve the state, they’re part of the state structure.

”They haven’t lost their credibility … they work very hard around the clock. They can’t get it right every time,” Kasrils told reporters at a seminar on intelligence and democracy.

The minister was responding to Democratic Alliance leader Sandra Botha, who was present at the seminar, who said the intelligence services appeared to have a ”lack of support” from government.

She was referring to the recent xenophobic attacks that claimed over 60 lives, describing them as ”as threats that manifested themselves before they were detected”.

”That was impossible to predict,” said Kasrils.

”We are talking about socioeconomic root causes in society. I am not saying that we couldn’t have done better.”

The minister added that intelligence services were absolutely ”appropriate” and needed to mirror the values of the society they served, while intelligence officers were bound to operate under the law.

Intelligence services had not been involved in any party succession matters, nor in African National Congress president Jacob Zuma’s forthcoming trial, Kasrils said.

Speaking at the seminar, Botha said that the Department of Home Affairs could be the ”biggest threat” to national security.

”The Minister of Home Affairs and her department may very well be the biggest threat to our national security. Even the scandalous and deplorable acts of xenophobia we have witnessed are in some regard related to the enormous inefficiency and corruption that is so rife in that department,” said Botha.

Home Affairs spokesperson Cleo Mosana could not be reached for comment. – Sapa