The work to keep a nation safe from threats or potential threats has become very difficult in the 21st century. The advent of globalisation and the advances in technology resulted in borderless societies and a complex world of changing global threats. It is inconceivable that there would be a government worth its salt that would not create and sustain security institutions to safeguard its people, installations and critical infrastructure that form the bedrock of the economy and government operations in terms of services.
Post 1994, South Africa developed an oversight model for the country’s intelligence services, in an effort to ensure that abuses associated with the apartheid era of intelligence remain a thing of the past.
Noting that a number of design, functional and implementation changes have occurred in the past 18 years within the accountability and oversight model, this study sought to establish the extent to which the current accountability and oversight model is effective and still relevant in dealing with the 21st century challenges of intelligence. This was the main research question. The study was grounded in the institutional theory in its different variants.
This study argued that the South African accountability and oversight model needs to be reviewed and aligned with the latest international developments which bring an institutionalised civilian oversight as part of the central pillars of the model.
Through a combination of documentation analysis and interviews of a targeted sample of experts, the study found that while a sound legislative framework is in place within an appropriately designed model, there are inadequate skills at the parliamentary level for oversight. Policy gaps in respect of the control of intelligence at the ministerial level have also been found to be a serious limitation of the current accountability model. The study also found that civilian oversight suffers from a lack of an institutionalised framework.
The study concluded with a number of recommendations pertaining to amendments of legislation to provide for an institutionalised framework for civilian oversight, introduction
of mandatory training programmes for members of the parliamentary committee on oversight, as well the need to close prevailing policy gaps.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:wits/oai:wiredspace.wits.ac.za:10539/14198 |
| Date | 18 March 2014 |
| Creators | Dube, Brian Fikani |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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