President Cyril Ramaphosa has released a report into the unrest that rocked South Africa in July last year. It describes not only the failure of the intelligence services and police to plan for and contain the situation, but also a failure on the part of the Executive to fulfil its role.
The report by Professor Sandy Africa, Advocate Mojanku Gumbi and Silumko Sokupa said: ‘Mr. President, you asked us to determine whether the response by the security services was timeous, appropriate and sufficient. The answer to that, in respect of the police and the intelligence services, is an unequivocal no. Many reasons were proffered for this failure, but in the end the response remains that they failed to do the necessary to protect life, limb and property. The reasons are set out in the body of our report. The Executive, however, carries some of the blame too and must take responsibility for its lapse of leadership.’
It was highly critical of the conduct of the intelligence agencies and the police. Of the former, it reported, ‘The intelligence appreciation and interpretation of what was building up happened too late, if at all; and as a result, the security services failed to put in place the necessary interventions to detect and disrupt the plans.’
The police lacked preparedness and appropriate equipment.
Moreover, the behaviour of the country’s political leadership came in for severe criticism. The report detailed confusion between political and managerial roles and tensions between ministers and department leaders. Even the accounts of the events given by leaders differed from one another.
It was also unclear whether ministers were acting under the direction of the President.
In a damning assessment, the report noted: ‘With the Executive not having fully appreciated the scale of the threat, it took political intervention by other actors to persuade the President to scale up the numbers. The initial hesitancy to deploy resulted in the violence spiraling further out of control, and the debate over numbers caused some delays, though minor.’
Journalist Qaanitah Hunter – who co-authored a book on the unrest – wrote that while the Executive as a whole must be held accountable, there should be a reckoning for President Ramaphosa: ‘At the same time, Ramaphosa cannot emerge from this untainted. As president, he chaired the National Security Council, which the report found to have acted less than adequately, and he did not take charge of his own ministers who were found running around like headless chickens.
It doesn’t end with this report. Something fundamental has to change.’