The National Intelligence Agency (NIA) is conducting detailed security checks on senior health department staff — a move some regard as an “invasive and excessive” extension of its powers.
Last month, the Gauteng health department asked high-level hospital staffers to meet NIA demands by submitting personal security clearance forms. The request was made to “all chief executive officers at Gauteng hospitals, all regional chief directors, principals of nursing colleges, emergency medical services, forensic pathology services, deans/managers of oral and dental hospitals, and all other heads of institutions”.
The NIA confirmed that security clearances were being conducted in some Gauteng institutions, including the health and home affairs departments.
In addition to work, education and criminal history, the nine-page form asks for the particulars of spouses and other family members, and details of all visits abroad in the past five years. Staff must also be fingerprinted by the police.
But Gauteng health spokesperson Mandla Sidu said he had not been aware of the process, and national health department spokesperson Fidel Hadebe said he did not know why the NIA was vetting senior hospital staff.
“We haven’t asked the NIA to vet our CEOs. All we’ve done is put in place a [departmental] process to assess their qualifications and experience,” he said.
Democratic Alliance health spokesperson Mike Waters branded the exercise invasive and excessive. “It seems an infringement of individual privacy — Surely the normal human resources process would ask if you have a criminal record, and your fingerprints should already be on record because of your [identity] book,” Waters said.
NIA spokesperson Brian Dube said that as early as 2002, Parliament had passed legislation for public servants to be vetted “to ensure that the state has in its employ the appropriate individuals who posses the capabilities and attributes to do their work effectively, without compromising the work of the state”.
Dube said that state security minister Siyabonga Cwele referred to the process in his budget vote last year, saying: “We will continue to secure the full implementation of all elements of our vetting strategy, which contributes to enabling government to expose and root out criminals from the public service.”
Waters questioned this. “How’s that [process] going to stop criminality, unless they’re monitoring people and their families every day?” he asked. “It seems it’s a smoke screen for something else — and it raises concerns.”
A senior doctor interviewed at Steve Biko Academic Hospital in Pretoria, who asked not to be named, objected strongly to filling in the form. “A lot of questions are not relevant to what we’re doing here. We’re not working for the secret service. Why do they want the ID numbers of our friends and relatives?”
The doctor said he believed the form pointed to a political agenda or “something more sinister”. Some of the 15 doctors who received the form at his hospital would not complete it, while others would fill it in only partially or wanted to discuss the matter with their superiors.
Dube denied that the NIA was overstepping its powers. “The mandate of the state security ministry is not limited to foreign issues. There’s a huge domestic element — and we’re working with others structures in the police and justice department.”
Clearance checks were part of a “continuous process”. Eventually all departments in the country would be looked at.