Today we table our Budget Vote Speech to Parliament, providing a high level policy direction in our pursuit to uphold national security as guided by the constitution. We continue to be resolute in our belief that working together we can builds a safer nation in a secure world.
President Jacob Zuma in his State of the Nation Address reminded the nation in general and intelligent services in particular, of the duty to protect our Constitution; The President affirmed people’s rights to protest and demonstrate peacefully but denounced acts of violence, intimidation and destruction of property and loss of life. He called on the security services to double their efforts and restore the authority of the state.
We have headed President’s call. The whole security cluster is increasing its capacity and focus on this scourge. We now have plan and are ready deploy the full capacity of the democratic state to identify, prevent or arrest and swiftly prosecute those who undermine our bill of rights by engaging in acts of violence. The ‘Eye of the Nation’ is watching.
We call upon all law abiding citizen to join us in a campaign of the restoration of the culture of Ubuntu and respect of human rights. Let us reiterate that as a nation we have a right to engage in peaceful and unarmed protest action but we must not allow criminality fear and intimidation to prevail.
The process of restructuring Civilian Intelligence Community into a single department, the State Security Agency has almost been finalised with the imminent passing of the enabling legislation in Parliament. We have achieved a number of noticeable milestones.
We now have finalised the new organisational structure and reconfigured line-functional areas in keeping a new business case. The intention is to develop well-oiled machinery that is able to deliver timely, accurate and relevant intelligence that supports the work of government in delivering a better life to all our people.
We continue to ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Republic. We are moving away from an inadequate and fragmented model to a fully integrated model of managing our entire border environment.
We have conclude the preparatory work and handed over to the Department of Home Affairs to lead the preparation of the proclamation for establishment of the BMA by 2014. Pending the establishment of the BMA, existing operational structures such as NATJOINTS and NATJOCS are being utilised to achieve integration and cooperation.
The process of developing a National Security Strategy is at an advanced stage. The SSA and the JCPS cluster have already covered a lot of ground in preparing the draft document and we hope to submit it for cabinet approval within the next three months. Thereafter it is critical to canvass inputs and buy-in by the South African public. We hope a parliament will drive this public consultation because we have to work together to secure our nation.
Global security remains stable but fragile due to pockets of conflicts in some regions of the world. One of the most noticeable trends since 2012 is the increase in the threat of terrorism in Africa. As a nation, we may not turn a blind eye on the evolving humanitarian crisis. The primary objective is to urgently restore security in order to allow inflows of humanitarian assistance and the economic reconstruction.
We are intensifying our effort of international collaboration in dealing to threats to global security such as terrorism, disasters and transnational crimes including internet crimes.
In this regard, last year we attended the third international meeting of “High Ranking Officials Responsible for Security Matters” in St Petersburg, Russia, and the first BRICS National Security Advisors’ (NSA) Ministerial meeting held in New Delhi, India in January 2013. The outcomes of these meetings helped us share experiences on common approach to addressing threats such as piracy, terrorism and cyber security.
As the current chair of the BRICS National Security Advisor’s forum, State Security is leading the process of hosting the next NSA meeting in South Africa later this year. The focus of the meeting will be on strengthening cooperation and finding broad consensus on security issues of mutual concern.
Enquiries:
Brian Dube, Head of Communication
Cell: 082 418 3389
