DA refuses to participate in secret interviews of the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence
17 March 2015
The Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence (JSCI) this morning began to interview candidates for the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence in a closed meeting.
The Democratic Alliance's members serving on the committee including Dirk Stubbe MP, Hendrik Schmidt MP and Herman Groenewald MP walked out of the meeting in protest after lodging an objection to the decision by the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence to conduct interviews for the position of the Inspector-General of Intelligence in closed meetings.
The decision to conduct the interviews of shortlisted candidates for the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence is wrong.
This is because:
The decision is inconsistent with the Section 59 of the Constitution which requires Parliament to conduct its business in an open and transparent manner;
The process is inconsistent since the shortlisting of candidates was conducted in an open meeting of a Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence sub-committee held on Tuesday 24 February 2015; and
The decision is unprecedented since the process of appointing the last Inspector-General for Intelligence, Advocate Faith Radebe, included interviews that were conducted in an open meeting of the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
The Democratic Alliance's Chief Whip, John Steenhuisen MP, has again written to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, contesting the decision and requesting her to provide reasons for why the public and media have been excluded from the process of interviewing shortlisted candidates for the position of Inspector-General of Intelligence.
We cannot in the end have a situation where the Inspector-General of Intelligence is appointed behind closed doors by a secret conclave of members serving on the Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence.
Statement issued by David Maynier MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of State Security, March 17 2015
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