All is not well when it comes to security clearances in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF).
This is the conclusion drawn by Pieter Groenewald, Freedom Front Plus (FF+) defence spokesman, following a written reply to a Parliamentary question.
His question was prompted by the jailing of an SA Army officer last year. The officer, Colonel Nceba Patrick Bobelo, was found guilty and sentenced for his involvement in an armed robbery committed in the Eastern Cape in March 1995.
In October last year, after Afrikaans daily Beeld had drawn public attention to his sentencing and not being behind bars as well as the fact that Bobelo was a commander of the joint military tactical headquarters in Mpumalanga, he handed himself over to military authorities and is currently in jail.
Groenewald said the Bobelo incident was a further indication of the “farce” security clearances had become in the SANDF.
“That Bobelo held a strategic position and despite his crime record could still receive a secret clearance makes a mockery of the SANDF’s security clearance procedures and creates a national security risk.
“This trend can also be found in the SAPS Crime Intelligence Division.”
Groenewald pointed out Bobelo’s security clearance had lapsed in 2005 and was not renewed.
“Secret and top secret security clearances are only valid for five years. This means the SANDF does not have proper control of its security clearance and that the officer now behind bars could have had access to and worked with secret information from 2005 without the necessary clearance.
“The question has to be asked: ‘how many other similar cases are there in the SANDF?'”
In her written reply to the question, Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said the SANDF “had not been aware until now” the officer was involved in an armed robbery.
She said this was because the armed robbery occurred in the early 1990s and was in the domain of the South African Police Service (SAPS). “The SANDF is investigating how this oversight may have occurred,” she wrote.
