Following on from her work with the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture, Corruption and Fraud in the Public Sector Including Organs of State (‘State Capture Commission’), the Rivonia Group’s Vicky Heideman has been investigating the shadowy sources of funding to the State Security Agency (‘SSA’) that allowed for its capture.

In his Final Report on State Capture, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo found that deliberate efforts were made post-Polokwane to capture national intelligence.  Furthermore, had the SSA not been captured, the capture of other state-owned entities that followed could have been averted.  Given these far-reaching findings, it is even more alarming that some of the Apartheid-era legislation which allows for secret funding of covert operations in the SSA remains in place.

In a series of two articles and a webinar with the Daily Maverick, Vicky discusses the highly problematic Secret Services Accounts and proposes some possible mechanisms to avert capture of intelligence services in the future.