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The Democratic Alliance (DA) believes that the Minister of State Security, Siyabonga Cwele, must ensure that a full investigation is conducted into a series of mysterious fire and theft incidents involving the State Security Agency.

The Durban headquarters of the South African Revenue Service (SARS) was reportedly closed because of a fire on the weekend of 11/12 February 2012. Reports stated that the top floor of the office block caught fire, but that SARS rents offices in the basement of the office block.

The fire did not therefore break out in SARS offices, but rather in an office block occupied by SARS.

The fact is that the fire broke out in the offices of the State Security Agency (Domestic Branch) – formally the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) – which shared an office block with SARS.

The fire at the State Security Agency’s offices in Durban raises some serious questions, including whether:

the building caught fire as a result of an accident or arson;
any sensitive state information was destroyed; and
any sensitive state information may have been stolen?

We have to be absolutely sure there was no foul play and that the fire in the State Security Agency’s office was not caused by arson.

This is just one of a number of mysterious incidents which have plagued the state security department.

These incidents include:

a recent break-in at a state security department office in Pretoria; and
a recent break-in at State Security Agency (Domestic Branch) office in George.

The motives for the break-ins remain unclear.

However, the break-ins do raise serious questions about the security of the State Security Agency’s offices.

If the State Security Agency cannot protect their own offices, how can the State Security Agency protect our national security?

The DA therefore calls on Minister of State Security Siyabonga Cwele to:

ensure that a full investigation is conducted by the South African Police Service into a series of mysterious fire and theft incidents at the State Security Agency; and
make a public statement setting out the facts once the investigation by the SAPS is complete.

The public must be reassured that, given the high levels of politicisation within the national intelligence structure, and given the recent outbreak of “spy wars” within the State Security Agency, there was no foul play and that national security has not been compromised.