State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo must be fired immediately because she lied to South Africans when she said the police had been given information warning of the unrest, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) have demanded.
In a three-page statement, the EFF called “for the immediate removal and impeachment” of Minister Dlodlo, “for deliberately misleading the public and Parliament about non-existent intel that cautioned government on the ‘Release Zuma’ riots”.
The Red Berets did not mince their words saying: “She is part of information peddlers who lie to our people to protect their utter incompetence”.
During a media briefing, Dlodlo told reporters that the State Security Agency (SSA) had Intelligence on the unrest that was forwarded to the SA Police Service and Police Minister Bheki Cele.
“We analysed and packaged information for the client, we gave it to them. Minister Cele said that intelligence is driving operations. We gave SAPS all the information they needed to plan for these riots,” said Dlodlo at the time.
Cele denies receiving the “packaged product” saying such information is signed for and he did not do so.
The week-long violent unrest and looting in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng resulted in the deaths of more than 200 people and damage to property and infrastructure worth billions of rand.
But with contradictions surfacing of who knew what and when the EFF has lambasted the “incompetence” of those in charge.
The Fighters said implications of Dlodlo’s remarks were that the “government knew about the possible blockade of roads and attacks on malls as instigations for a riot or public unrest, but elected to do nothing, which amounts to treason”.
The EFF said it was placing on public record that Dlodlo and the SSA “never had any Intelligence product generated to foresee key events of the riots”.
Dlodlo has misled the public, and her officials in the SSA have deliberately misled Parliament in order “to hide their utter incompetence and negligence”, said the EFF, adding: “It is a fact that Intelligence agencies of our country did not foresee any of the key events leading or sparking the riots”.
“They are all dysfunctional, internally compromised by infiltration and fractionalisation … They cannot provide, even to the JSCI [Joint Standing Committee on Intelligence], any shred of evidence,” said the EFF.
“This is evidence of how dangerous Minister Dlodlo is to the national security and stability of our country.”
