An investigation into former President Jacob Zuma’s armed private intelligence unit was shut down by former State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo and the retired head of domestic intelligence Mahlodi Sam Muofhe in March this year.
The unit was led by Thulani Dlomo, a Zuma loyalist who has been named in connection with the widespread recent violence in KZN and Gauteng in which 340 people died and billions of Rands damage was caused to property.
This bombshell landed as the state capture commission wrapped up its three-year-long hearings on Thursday with President Cyril Ramaphosa once again in the hot seat.
Team leader advocate Paul Pretorius said that the evidence which Muofhe had hidden included documents showing how arms and state funds had been spirited out of state intelligence into private hands.
Pretorius asked Ramaphosa whether blocking this evidence was relevant to the violent unrest in the country in July. “Anyone with an enquiring mind would raise these questions,” he said.
Ramaphosa said the proposition was not unreasonable and was “part of the investigation underway”. He added: “It is about security for the people of our country.
There was a lapse, and we need to investigate how it happened and how it manifested itself,” said Ramaphosa.
Pretorius said that “an efficient, lawful and capable State Security Agency doing its allotted tasks during the state capture years may have made a big difference to what happened.”
Ramaphosa responded: “It happened as (did) many other wrong things, inexplicable things. Our task now as we move forward is to deal with all the things that went wrong. We must admit it was an agency compromised and operating under the milieu of state capture.”
Ferial Haffajee of the Daily Maverick reported that the revelation shows why Ramaphosa moved Dlodlo in the recent cabinet reshuffle and why Ramaphosa placed state security under the Presidency.
Ramaphosa testified for two days in his capacities as former deputy president of the ANC and the country, and now, the current president.
The chairperson of the commission Deputy Chief Justice Raymond Zondo said Ramaphosa would receive the report in “due course”.
Zondo said: “I can’t wait to hand the report to you and say: I’m done.”
