Magosi Concedes Intelligence Oversight Bodies Ineffective
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Monday July 8, 2019 13:44
This is despite that the DIS Act has provision for the Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence, and Intelligence and Security Services Tribunal to provide oversight on the organisation.
Magosi said this on Friday when addressing members of the press in Gaborone to mark his one-year anniversary since taking charge of the directorate.
He stated that since the DIS was established, its oversight bodies have been hardly effective. He said this has eroded public trust in the organisation.
“I must say the oversight is hardly effective. We would like to have an effective oversight. We wish to see that committee elected by Parliament,” he said.
He said there is work to revise the DIS Act to ensure that those oversight bodies are revised.
The Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence, and Intelligence and Security Services Tribunal have been seemingly dead. It is reported that the Parliamentary Committee on Intelligence and Security has never met since 2014. The committee is tasked with examining the expenditure, administration and policy of the directorate, however it does not have access to any operational information of the DIS.
In 2016, the then assistant minister of presidential affairs and public administration, Dikgang Makgalemele told Parliament that the last chairperson of the committee was the Member of Parliament for Gaborone South Kagiso Molatlhegi, but since he was appointed deputy speaker no one has replaced him.
Makgalemele also explained that this has led to the failure of the committee to meet.
Makgalemele further said the committee has failed to table any annual reports to Parliament over the years. Meanwhile, Magosi has said there is “appetite for coup in the country”.
“There is fear of a coup. The appetite of a coup is there, but not at a stage that Batswana should be worried. Like I said, the security situation of this country has shifted,” he said.