As we enter the new millennium, intelligence as one of the oldest professions remains poised to play a critical role in the stabilisation of our country, the Southern African region and beyond. Intelligence remains seized with the challenge to provide early warning on threats and potential threats to peace and stability, and of finding opportunities for our country - thereby making a contribution towards improving the quality of life of our rainbow nation.

The Ministry for Intelligence Services continues to view social and economic development, and peace and stability, as two sides of the same coin. The two are indivisible and it is for this reason that the Intelligence Services are committed to ensuring that there is freedom from fear and freedom from want.

These Services have played an integral role in the ushering in and consolidation of our new dispensation. It is through their painstaking hard work that we have been able to confound the prophets of doom who thought that our country would disintegrate into the abyss of violence. This they did whilst engaging in the arduous processes of transformation and restructuring. Our Intelligence Services have been able to withstand and survive the intense and unprecedented demands of our transition period.

The Intelligence Services, in keeping with the Ministerial Directives, have embarked upon a process of re-gearing to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

The security services remain seized with the challenge posed by crime, especially organised crime. In this regard several joint projects between the various agencies are being conducted so as to deal with organised crime groups, and to convert intelligence into evidence admissible in Court, without undermining our intelligence capacity. The Memorandum of Understanding signed under the auspices of NICOC made these achievements possible.

For us, there is absolutely no doubt that crime is being managed downwards. We no longer have the same degree of drive-by shootings, taxi violence, train violence, or random killings in shebeens and at bus stops. This is not to deny that violent crime remains at an unacceptably high level, but rather to call for a rational and realistic assessment of the nature of our problem. As the President said, crime should not be turned into a death wish.

Intelligence has to make sure that the weapons, the hitmen, and the godfathers behind the criminal networks and syndicates are brought to book. For as long as they creep and crawl amongst us, they remain a danger to the consolidation of the new dispensation. We know most of these puppet masters, we know what their aims and objectives are, and they also know that the long arm of the law is slowly but surely reaching for them. We are closing the gap between knowing and gathering court admissible evidence. Our capacity improves daily although there is no room for complacency.

The Intelligence Services are developing good working relations amongst themselves and with other state departments such as the Department of Home Affairs, the South African Revenue Service, the Department of Trade and Industry, and Foreign Affairs. This has facilitated the adoption of a multidisciplinary approach towards crime combating, including the flow of sensitive information. Again, whilst highlighting these achievements, we acknowledge that more can be done.

The Ministry for Intelligence Services is keen on developing partnership with business; our communities, inclusive of organs of civil society, together with our Intelligence Services and government. This will greatly enhance our capacity to address the national intelligence priorities as set by Cabinet.

We are also focusing on our cooperation and coordination methods and mechanisms to respond to the growing demand for SA input in the region. This is a crucial platform for the success of the African Renaissance, a critical pillar of our foreign policy.

The Ministry for Intelligence Services remains committed to the creation of lean and mean, accountable and responsive Intelligence Services. Services that respect and work in keeping with the White Paper on Intelligence, our legislation and Constitution - in a politically non-partisan manner.

The Intelligence Services are currently reviewing their capacity to improve the quality of service we render to our clients. This includes developing new intelligence capacity, strengthening that which is weak, and scrapping that which is a nice-to-have but irrelevant to our national priorities. The objective is to make the Intelligence Services more efficient, more effective and equal to the task facing them in this era.

In this regard the focus will shift from restructuring to our greatest resource - our people. We will review their deployment, their capacity and potential, and their developmental needs instead of changing structures. A key concern is to improve the quality of the products by strengthening the analytical capacity of our Intelligence Services.

In the short term, the Intelligence Services are charged with a brief to contribute towards the creation of an environment that is conducive to peaceful, free and fair elections by warning, informing, predicting and advising on threats and potential threats in this regard. Key in this regard is dealing with the renewed violence in KwaZulu-Natal as a whole and the issue of urban terrorism in the Cape Peninsula.

We have already instructed our intelligence operatives to work in close support of the SAPS in these provinces in every manner legally possible in bringing the perpetrators to book. This is in keeping with the NCPS.

They are also charged with uprooting the remnants of covert structures of destabilisation-remnants of the Third Force. As South Africans we need to put to rest the sterile debate about the existence or otherwise of the Third Force. It is now common cause that the previous government set up networks and decentralised units as a part of their counter-revolutionary strategy. These networks and groups were, in their fields of specialisation, the cutting edge in the total onslaught against the liberation movement.

This is a pre-requisite to understanding the South African situation today. The Third Force is not a conspiracy theory; it is part of our history, which we need to accept and learn from. The unearthing of the remnants of the Third Force remains a challenge and a precondition for the consolidation of our democracy.

The theft of minibuses and computers from the Intelligence Services continues to haunt us. Their retrieval and bringing to book those involved is a task time will never be able to take away. We are mindful of this challenge and insist that they be retrieved.

In our endeavour to deepen the transformation process, a general Intelligence Law Amendment Bill will be presented to Parliament. This Bill will amongst other things provide for the restraint of trade of members leaving the Services to join alternative intelligence services.

The Ministerial Commission into the Transformation of Defence Intelligence is proceeding with its work and we await the report.

The SAPS, I have learnt from the National Commissioner, is strengthening its Crime Intelligence Component to meet the demand for relevant, timely, accurate crime intelligence which will give us a further edge over criminals.

The employment equity working group in NIA and SASS is proposing a plan to redress imbalances based on race, gender and disability within the Services. This process will enable the Intelligence Services to address one of the greatest challenges facing humanity: HIV/AIDS.

As we prepare to elect our second democratic parliament and government, be assured that the Intelligence Services remain vigilant and ready to rise to the challenge. We remain ready to defend our common sense of belonging, our shared destiny, and our ability to resolve problems that seemed defiant of resolution.