Would an inspector-general in SA with two other passports be acceptable?
Candidate Bruce Watson, an academic from the University of Stellenbosch, has lived in, and had passports for, SA, Canada and the Netherlands
The global citizen status of the first candidate interviewed for the position of inspector-general of intelligence put him in a tough spot, when he appeared before Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence on Tuesday. Prof Bruce Watson, an academic from the University of Stellenbosch, has lived in, and had passports for, SA, Canada and the Netherlands. The position of inspector-general of intelligence has been vacant for the better part of a year-and-a-half after the ANC’s preferred candidate, MP Cecil Burgess, failed on more than one occasion to secure the required two-thirds majority support from MPs. The incumbent is accountable to the joint standing committee on intelligence and to the President for the work of his office, and must report to the committee on the overall function of the office at least once a year. When Parliament released the names of 10 short-listed candidates last week, it became clear that Burgess would no longer be in the pecking order for the jo...
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