State Security Agency wanted to spy on me, says Thuli Madonsela

Former public protector Thuli Madonsela says the State Security Agency (SSA) tried to spy on her during her investigation into the infamous landing of the Gupta wedding plane at Waterkloof Air Force Base. 

Madonsela told the parliamentary inquiry into her successor Busisiwe Mkhwebane’s fitness to hold office on Monday that after her office had done a forensic investigation into the SSA and had caught them lying, the agency suddenly wanted to vet her.  

“I had been public protector for four or five years and as I was finalising the Waterkloof landing matter the last person I interviewed was from the SSA,” she said. 

“A few days later there was a first of those crazy spy stories and then suddenly in the middle of nowhere, the SSA wanted to vet me.” 

She said this was at a time when it was widely known “that agency was full of shenanigans and we now know that it was captured”. 

“I knew for a fact that this has nothing to do with trying to vet me, it had something to do with wanting to follow me with the permission of a judge. That’s the context in which I’m talking about being spied on,” she said. 

Madonsela’s appearance before the inquiry on Monday provided what was probably its most heated and antagonistic session. 

She and Mkhwebane’s legal representative, Dali Mpofu, kept taking jibes at each other.

Madonsela repeatedly reminded Mpofu she was not the one facing impeachment and questioned the relevance of some of his questions. 

Mpofu sought to undermine Madonsela’s time in office and her credentials, even questioning whether she was an advocate and whether she was registered with the Legal Practice Council. 

Mpofu took issue with Madonsela not having been vetted when she was public protector, while the office’s senior staff had to be vetted. 

“There was no policy that said the public protector must be vetted and my predecessors were also not vetted.” 

She said the policy on the vetting of staff came from the attorney -general  because of a government decision to vet staff.  

When Mpofu further probed her on having access to sensitive information while she had no security clearance, Madonsela reminded him this was the same for ministers, judges and MPs who had access to documents, despite not being vetted.  

She said there was an equivalent process to vetting that she went through before her appointment as public protector which was conducted by the department of justice. 

It was incorrect for Mpofu to say not being vetted by an institution that “had gone rogue” at the time was wrong, she said. 

The inquiry continues on Tuesday.

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