SSA ordered to release financial records for services it received from the African News Agency

JOHANNESBURG - The State Security Agency (SAA) has been ordered to release the financial records pertaining to services it received from the African News Agency, which is owned by controversial media owner, Iqbal Surve.

In a media briefing on Wednesday, the Information Regulator (IR) said that it issued an enforcement notice to the spy agency last month to release the relevant records.

The regulator said that the matter dates back to June 2022 when an investigative journalist from the Daily Maverick made a promotion of Access to Information Act request to find out the details between SSA’s payment to the news agency between 2015 and 2019.

Regulator Chairperson Pansy Tlakula said that the agency failed to prove how disclosing these records would jeopardise the country’s national security.

"The regulator found, among others, that the SSA had failed to prove that the disclosure of the records could reasonably impede or result in a miscarriage of justice and reveal the identity of a confidential source of information in relation to an ongoing investigation on the matter related to the records being requested."