Extract
As President Cyril Ramaphosa looks to scale down the size of his cabinet, state security is one obvious ministry to slash.
Nelson Mandela’s first cabinet did not have a minister of intelligence. Those who envisaged the new government did not deem it necessary to have a political head of the intelligence services. The work was operational, not political.
However, in 1995, the ANC’s former intelligence chief, Joe Nhlanhla, was appointed as deputy minister of intelligence under the justice ministry. In 1999, then president Thabo Mbeki changed the intelligence portfolio to a full ministry.