Security set-up needs drastic overhaul – analyst

Dr Jakkie Cilliers, of the Institute for Security Studies (ISS), has urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to follow the example of PW Botha in the way the latter transformed the Bureau for State Security (Boss) during the apartheid era. According to a report in Die Burger, Cilliers says SA has an intelligence agency in name only. In light of the failures regarding the civil unrest, as well as instability in Mozambique and eSwatini, SA’s intelligence service needs an urgent and drastic overhaul similar to Botha’s intervention to appoint outsider Niël Barnard to reform Boss. ‘President Ramaphosa must now do the same and appoint someone with the necessary knowledge, integrity and backbone to break down and rebuild the SSA. It cannot be yet another party loyalist,’ says Cilliers. He says the police, army and SSA are simply not up to the current challenges. He points out the police budget has increased by two-thirds over the past decade, ‘but ISS analysis shows the police’s performance has deteriorated on most levels over this period’.