The president’s tendency to avoid confrontation with his own party means we must maintain public outrage to ensure an end to state capture(Photo by Papi Morake/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Ambassador Thembi Majola has been appointed the new director general of the State Security Agency (SSA), effective 1 March.
The announcement was made via a statement from the presidency late on Monday. The position was deemed one of many critical posts needing to be filled in senior security positions.
The SSA has widely been deemed ineffectual and beset by factionalism since the administration of former president Jacob Zuma, with allegations being made at the State Capture commission of a parallel intelligence agency being established to benefit Zuma and his political cronies.
The agency was also severely criticised in the High Level Review Panel report of 2018 and, most recently, in the report of the presidential panel that was established to probe the July riots.
“The appointment of Ambassador Thembi Majola to this position is an important part of our work to stabilise the country’s intelligence services. Her extensive experience in government, international relations and security makes her well placed to lead the reform and rebuilding of the State Security Agency,” Ramaphosa said in the statement.
“Her appointment is expected to give greater impetus to the implementation of the report of the SSA High Level Review Panel and the recommendations of the Expert Panel into the July 2021 unrest,” he said.
The High Level Review Panel report found that there had been “serious politicisation and factionalism of the intelligence community over the past decade or more”.
This had resulted in “an almost complete disregard for the Constitution, policy, legislation and other prescripts, and [had the effect of] turning our civilian intelligence community into a private resource to serve the political and personal interests of particular individuals”.
There was concern, according to that report, that there had been a “deliberate repurposing of the SSA”.
Last month, in the 154-page Report of the Expert panel into the July 2021 Civil Unrest, a number of intelligence failures were highlighted, including vacancies in key positions within the security cluster. That report also mentioned factional battles within the ANC, and how these impacted on the riots.
It also noted that at the time of the unrest, there had only been moderate progress in implementing of the High Level Review Panel Report.
Majola was a former deputy minister of energy and was South Africa’s ambassador to Senegal, Mauritania, Cape Verde, Gambia and Guinea Bissau.