It is worrying and embarrassing that such delicate information about the state of the country is now in the public domain, these are the views of Democratic Alliance Parliamentary leader Mmusi Maimane.

Speaking to The Daily Vox on Google Hangout, Maimane said that the leak requires a briefing and proper interrogation.

He was speaking on the issue of the country's Security Agency (SSA) being named in a spy report.

The leak shows Britain's security agency, the Military Intelligence section 6 (MI6) asking the the State Security Agency for assistance in assassinating an African diplomat as well as assistance in recruiting a North Korean official.

Here are Maimane's comments:

"Its an important security breach as a start.

"There can be information that is sensitive state of South Africa being leaked in the manner that it is, particularly to a news agency like Al Jazeera is worrying.

Where it positions our relationship with other foreign countries

"More critically is that this is the worst it has ever been in South Africa as a young democracy of 20 years and that is why we wanted to make it very clear that State Security and State Intelligence is governed and has accountability within a parliamentary structure. There is a joint committee on intelligence that meets the members and they are sworn to secrecy and they take an oath on that regard," he said.

What the committee does is it puts South Africans at ease with the knowledge that 'not a few individuals, the minister of State Security and the presidency can dictate what SA says is parliamentary processing'.

"There are people who can sit and really interrogate the info and make sure SA is strategically doing the right things and is aligned to our own policies whether that be foreign policy and policy around other agencies."

"It requires a briefing it requires oversight, it requires that South Africans have the safety to know that info will be will interrogated properly.

"I feel very embarrassed that that info is out in the public domain but I think it now needs to be interrogated in the right committee."

Report from The Daily Vox on the Spy Cable:

If you thought the State Security Agency  was playing dirty when it took over Parliament during the State of the Nation Address, wait until you see what the latest round of leaked spy cables reveals.

Al Jazeera today announced that it has received a digital dump of hundreds of secret intelligence documents including detailed briefings and internal analyses written by SSA operatives.

Revelations relating to South Africa in particular include: M16 asking the SSA for help in recruiting a North Korean official; and the SSA’s involvement, together with Ethiopian spies, in foiling an assassination plot targeting an as-yet-unnamed African diplomat.

According to Al Jazeera, the documents, which date from 2006 to 2014, “include detailed briefings and internal analyses written by operatives of South Africa’s State Security Agency (SSA). They also reveal the South Africans’ secret correspondence with the US intelligence agency, the CIA, Britain’s MI6, Israel’s Mossad, Russia’s FSB and Iran’s operatives, as well as dozens of other services from Asia to the Middle East and Africa.”

South African activist and academic, Jane Duncan, speaking to Al Jazeera, said: “The State Security Agency … hasn’t yet had its Edward Snowden. I think that that South Africans may get a shock at the extent of the slide back of the democratic controls on the security apparatus.”

Duncan’s comments were part of an Al Jazeera video announcing that the broadcaster has received a digital dump of hundreds of secret intelligence documents, which it will publish over the coming days and weeks in partnership with the Guardian.