WONDERBOY MAHLATSI | The silent collapse of crime intelligence

Nowhere is South Africa’s policing crisis more visible than within crime intelligence.

Once envisioned as the strategic backbone of proactive policing, this division has steadily lost its purpose. Instead of driving efforts against organised crime and safeguarding national security, it has increasingly been repurposed as a political tool — its operations redirected, suppressed, or selectively deployed in line with factional interests. In such an environment, intelligence no longer serves the public; it serves power.

A revealing example of this decline can be traced back to 2013. At the time, crime intelligence — under the leadership of retired Col JA Tshabangu — attempted to professionalise its counterintelligence capacity. Around 90 academically qualified vetting officers were recruited, including LLB graduates, diploma holders and specialists with BTech qualifications in forensic investigation and policing. It was, on paper, a serious investment in building a technically capable vetting system within the South African Police Service.

But the initiative was never given a real chance to succeed. The unit was systematically isolated, starved of resources, and denied the basic tools required to function. Despite the calibre of personnel, it was structurally marginalised within the broader intelligence framework. The outcome was inevitable: a skilled cohort rendered ineffective, not by incompetence, but by design. What could have become a cornerstone of counterintelligence was reduced to redundancy.

The consequences of this failure did not end there. From as early as 2014, many of these trained officers were absorbed into government departments and the private sector, where they were used to establish vetting and counterintelligence units elsewhere. In effect, SAPS became a training ground — developing scarce skills only to lose them. The institution was left weaker, while others benefited from its displaced capacity.

This history is critical to understanding current developments. When Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi warns that the SAPS vetting environment is compromised, it should not be seen as a sudden breakdown. It is the predictable outcome of years of neglect, interference, and the systematic weakening of internal capability.

If South Africa is serious about restoring the integrity of its policing system, the focus must return to rebuilding internal capacity, insulating intelligence structures from political interference, and upholding the constitutional principles that govern them

Against this backdrop, recent remarks by minister in the Presidency Khumbudzo Ntshaveni — suggesting that the State Security Agency (SSA) could take over the vetting of senior SAPS and metro police officials — raise serious concerns.

At face value, the proposal may appear administrative. In reality, it carries significant institutional and constitutional implications. Does this signal a loss of confidence in SAPS’s ability to manage its own vetting? If so, what evidence supports this conclusion? And what exactly is meant by “re-vetting” — does it apply only to expired clearances, or also to those that are still valid?

There are deeper operational questions, too. How will conflicting outcomes be handled if SAPS and SSA reach different conclusions on the same individual? Who has final authority? How will such a process be funded, and will it divert already limited resources from either institution? Perhaps most critically, will SSA rely on SAPS-trained officers to conduct this work, highlighting the contradiction of outsourcing a function while depending on the very capacity that was weakened?

Practical inconsistencies already illustrate the problem. There have been instances where senior officials — such as Lt-Gen Dumisani Khumalo — have reportedly undergone vetting by both SAPS and SSA within overlapping periods, with both institutions issuing clearances. This duplication raises fundamental questions about efficiency, coherence, and the rationale for parallel processes.

Similarly, in the case of Lt-Gen Shadrack Sibiya, questions remain regarding which institution issued his clearance and under what criteria. Such ambiguities erode confidence in the integrity of the vetting system as a whole.

These issues cannot be separated from the legal framework governing intelligence in South Africa. Section 209 of the constitution and the National Strategic Intelligence Act clearly establish that police intelligence operates as an autonomous, constitutionally recognised function. It is not subordinate to SSA. Any move to centralise vetting authority risks undermining this balance and concentrating power in ways the law does not intend.

Ultimately the problem is not a lack of expertise within SAPS. It is the failure to support, retain and properly utilise that expertise. Shifting responsibility to SSA may appear to offer a solution, but it risks deepening the very crisis it seeks to address.

If South Africa is serious about restoring the integrity of its policing system, the focus must return to rebuilding internal capacity, insulating intelligence structures from political interference, and upholding the constitutional principles that govern them. Without this, reform will remain superficial — and the decline will continue.

• Mahlatsi is a member of parliament and president of the United Africans Transformation party.