SA’s intelligence services are withholding information from the office of the inspector-general of intelligence (IGI), making it difficult for the watchdog to conduct investigations.

So says Faith Makhobotloane, senior executive responsible for intelligence oversight operations in the office of the IGI.

Makhobotloane was interviewed by parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence for the position of IGI — overseer of the country’s intelligence services and the person the public can approach with spy-related complaints.

She told MPs on Tuesday that since Setlhomamaru Dintwe assumed office there has been a dip in the level of co-operation by the intelligence agencies.

Makhobotloane has been working in the IGI office since January 2014, including as co-ordinator between the IGI and the state security agency (SSA). This position gave her an idea of all the requests for information that came from the IGI’s office.

While things were “OK” in the beginning, “suddenly we were not getting any response”.

“You request information in the form of a report or file on a particular matter and all you get is an acknowledgment of receipt. You send a reminder, a third and fourth, until you see you are not going to get what you are looking for.”

It has become worse over time, she said.

This was not only the SSA, or that they did not want to co-operate, but was due to “all manner of dynamics on the ground”.

“It’s the level of co-operation that suddenly dipped. At first not noticeably — over time the writing is on the wall, we will struggle.”

It had almost become normal to wait for information “for quite a while — sometimes you think unduly, sometimes maybe because they are busy collating and putting together the information to respond”.

This is not the first time an IGI candidate has raised the issue of non-co-operation by the spooks. During the November 2016 interviews, senior executives said some state security structures would not give them access to information for investigations because, at the time, the office did not have an executive authority.

Clarence Tshitereke, who was interviewed earlier in the day, said it was time the recommendations of the IGI were binding. “Perhaps not to the extent of similar institutions as the public protector because of the nature of work the intelligence service is doing,” he said.

His view was informed by developments of the past few years which have not been the desirable, he said.

“Perhaps we have reached a point where we need to find a way for these recommendations to be binding. If we don’t do this, we would be allowing the security services, in one way or the other, to do things with impunity, knowing that the IGI will come and we might even hide our books and he or she may not see exactly what we have done.”

The IGI using the administrative capacity of the SSA, including its IT systems, also needs to be reviewed, because it compromises the IGI’s independence from the intelligence services, said Tshitereke, whose previous work experience includes a stint as a senior analyst for the former National Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2005.

Tshitereke works as a research consultant on mining and social issues for Muthu Consultants where he is an executive director. He has a long record in the public service, including working as an adviser to cabinet ministers.

He said he applied for the position to contribute to efforts to establish a professional intelligence capability that respects the constitution and the law.

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