In his testimony before the Public Accounts Committee, the Director General of the Directorate of Intelligence Services and Security, Peter Magosi, has been keen to stress that what might look like “interference” in the work of other government departments was actually done in the interest of national security.
The issue was raised by the Committee’s chairperson, Dithapelo Keorapetse, who said that DISS routinely undertakes investigative work for ordinary cases that should be handled by either the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime or the Botswana Police Service. He would go back and forth on this point with Magosi. The latter maintained that where DISS does work that should ordinarily be done by DCEC or BPS, risk assessment would have determined that national security was at stake.
“When corruption is ordinary, it is not our interest. If it is out of the ordinary, and is perceived to now be affecting the peace of the country or the security of the country, that’s the only time, Sir, where the DISS would come in,” the DISS boss said.
A former member of the Botswana Defence Force, Magosi used a combination of military and folk honorifics: “Sir” and its Setswana equivalent, “Morena” as well as “mongwame” which approximates to “My Lord.” A lot of Sirs went into Magosi’s exchange with Keorapetse over what the Intelligence and Security Service Act actually says DISS should do. Applying what Magosi would have deemed a narrow interpretation of a provision about the agency “taking steps to protect the security interests of Botswana whether political, military or economic”, Keorapetse said that the agency is not mandated to fight corruption. Magosi countered this argument by asserting that corruption poses an economic security threat and that where DISS determines that corruption is of such nature, it is well within its mandate to step in. He would reiterate this point each time Keorapetse reiterated his about corruption not being within DISS’ mandate.
Keorapetse and Magosi also tussled over the latter’s use of “national concern” in the course of explaining why DISS does work that should ordinarily be done by other government departments. Magosi said that when a problem becomes a matter of national concern and there is danger of members of the public losing faith in the government, DISS steps in. Keorapetse asked whether, in service of the latter, DISS has a yardstick that it uses to measure erosion of the government’s legitimacy or loss of faith in the government. In response, Magosi said that DISS does analysis “on a daily basis.” On the whole, the MP considered the “national concern” standard to be specious and would rhetorically ask the DISS boss: “Tell me, at what point will we see crime and corruption not being issues of national concern? At what point?”
During his turn to ask questions, Taolo Lucas, Bobonong MP, also harped on the point about the DISS stepping on the mandate of other government departments. He also asked a very tricky question whose answer never came. The question was that, given that poverty and unemployment can (like corruption and crime) breach a certain threshold and pose national security threat, how does DISS respond when that happens? The second part of the question related to mishandling international relations in such manner that a national security threat emerges. Lucas would likely have been referring to the Butterfly case which has caused friction between Botswana and South Africa. The case in question involves former president Ian Khama, DISS’ founding DG, Isaac Kgosi, a DISS operative code-named Butterfly and a South African tycoon who is married to a minister in President Cyril Ramaphosa’s government. Botswana has alleged but to date has yet to prove that the quartet stole P100 billion from state coffers and transferred it through South African banks.
Magosi never gave a precise answer to this particular question and Lucas didn’t make a follow-up. The difficulty that Magosi would have had in answering the question is that he would have had to explain what DISS is doing about poverty, unemployment and ham-handed conduct of international relations that threaten national security. He only responded with regard to international relations, saying no more than that there was a ministry in charge of it.
Both Keorapetse and Lucas, who are members of the Umbrella for Democratic Change, raised concern about the working relationship between DISS and other security organs, especially the DCEC.
Keorapetse asked Magosi why DISS couldn’t share its intelligence yield with DCEC than have to undertake corruption investigations itself, thus stepping on the mandate of an agency that has been set up for the precise purpose of investigating corruption. In response, Magosi said that DISS has actually done that “many a time.” Backgrounding his comments against national security concerns, Lucas cast the apparent lack of cooperation between DISS and DCEC in apocalyptic terms. He said that it was deeply worrisome when security organs that are supposed to be working together in the interests of national security seem to be “at loggerheads” with each other.
“Don’t you see that, in itself, as a national security threat?” the MP asked.
Magosi also sidestepped this question, philosophising in broad terms that “there is no problem that can’t be solved.” He added that security organs have had differences in the past and will continue to have them.
“But there are ways and means where we sit down, talk about problems, come up with solutions and move forward,” said Magosi, adding that the Botswana situation is not peculiar because all other security organs the world over don’t always find themselves on the same page.
DISS was established by the Intelligence and Security Service Act in 2007. At the time, Festus Mogae was president and Ian Khama was vice president and the former had only one year left in office. It was not lost on anyone why DISS was established when this change of guard was imminent. Khama wanted to make an all-powerful presidency even more powerful because only the president supervises the DISS DG. In that regard, the immense powers in the Act really belong to the president. In the process, something even more interesting happened as a result: by default, the DISS DG became the second most powerful person in the country after the president.
To the extent that the Act outlines a broad mandate, Magosi’s point about corruption falling within DISS’ mandate can be said to have some validity. Evidently, there is a very strong feeling that the agency’s powers should be reduced. As regards MPs, the irony is that they are custodians of the Act and the only people who can reduce DISS powers by amending the Act. For now though, that appears unlikely because the amendment would have to come from the executive – which is headed by a president who is comfortable with DISS in its current constitution.
The plot twist will not be when there is a change of government – which some expect to hasten amendment of the Act – but when the president of the new government retains DISS in the form he would inherit it. On score of the fact that a new government might be imminent, one wonders whether UDC would want to change the Act when it assumes official power. If it does, its president would the near-monarchical powers that Khama and Masisi enjoyed.
