DLODLO HITS BACK AT CELE, INSISTS HER DEPT DID ITS JOB IN WARNING OF VIOLENCE

Police minister Bheki Cele told Parliament’s portfolio committee on police that he did not receive intelligence warning of the violence that unfolded in parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

FILE: State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo. Picture: Sethembiso Zulu/Eyewitness News.

Tshidi Madia

JOHANNESBURG - State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo has hit back at her counterpart Police Minister Bheki Cele insisting that her department did its job.

Cele told Parliament’s portfolio committee on police that he did not receive intelligence warning of the violence that unfolded in parts of Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.

But Dlodlo has told Eyewitness News on Tuesday that intelligence was given all the time to structures and not individuals.

Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa admitted that the country was ill prepared for what he has labelled a failed insurrection.

As the country reflects on events of the past week, questions have been asked on whether the wide-scale looting was a failure of intelligence services, lack of an adequate operational by police to quell it or both.

Cele and Dlodlo both sit and represent the country’s interests in government’s security cluster.

Yet they can’t agree on what went wrong, resulting in the deaths of more than 200 deaths.

Cele faced MPs who wanted to know why he ignored intelligence warning of an insurrection.

“The minister of SSA could not give a direct warning to the DG, it will have to come through via myself and I pass it on to the national commissioner.”

Dlodlo refused to be drawn on the public spat. But has defended her department, saying intelligence was given to structures and not individuals.

In a response to Eyewitness News, she further explained how State Security Agency approaches intelligence work, saying it came as strategic, tactical and operational and then the dissemination of the information was given to specific clientele in reference to departments.

Dlodlo said her department had tabled the relevant reports with the relevant structures.