“Revolving Door” ministers & clueless spies can’t protect SA from the “worst of the worst”

South Africa spends billions on its intelligence services, but more and more questions are being raised about the quality of intelligence being gathered. BizNews speaks to the Democratic Alliance’s (DA’) Dianne Kohler-Barnard who sits on the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence. Asked if there were a revolution tomorrow, would the intelligence services know or would they have to go on X and follow it there, she says:  “Well, I think if we can go by what happened in relation not only to the July riots two years ago, but also the burning of the trucks in KwaZulu Natal and Mpumalanga…they hadn't a clue…I do not believe that there is any working together of the three intelligence agencies in terms of determining something like that.” As for the impunity with which organised crime syndicates operate, Kohler-Barnard says she has personally seen trucks with special cubicles behind the drivers to fit “five or six children tied up, drugged and taken out the country and sold”. She fumes: “…you just have to keep on asking where are the hundreds of millions going to in terms of these various entities that don't seem to deliver when it comes to protecting South Africans from the worst of the worst. It is just not happening…” - Chris Steyn