Ramaphosa suspends intelligence watchdog amidst accountability storm

There’s a storm brewing in South Africa’s intelligence world; who is watching the watchers?

President Cyril Ramaphosa has suspended the Inspector-General of Intelligence, Imtiaz Fazel, the very person tasked with keeping the country's spies in check.

The announcement this week followed information from Parliament's joint standing committee on intelligence, which claimed to have received a complaint about Fazel.

News24's Pieter du Toit says it's reminiscent of the murky Richard Mdluli era and notes that Fazel looked into allegations of malfeasance and corruption at crime intelligence.

"He produced a report which recommended action against the National Police Commissioner, [and] which recommended action against the Head of Crime Intelligence and all of a sudden the IGI is suspended after he recommended action."

Questions need asking, says Du Toit, but adds that by its very nature, crime intelligence is something that happens in the dark. It needs to be protected from prying eyes, he says.

"We need to be able to trust the IGI and the Joint Standing Committee of Intelligence because they do their work behind closed doors."

Du Toit suggests that the inference that can be drawn from Fazal's suspension is that the President has taken sides, because of the recommendations he made.

"The moment that the IGI made his recommendations against the National Police Commissioner and the head of CI, and they then laid a counter complaint, the IGI was suspended within a matter of days."

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To listen to Du Toit in conversation with 702 Breakfast's Bongani Bingwa, use the audio player below: