Wilson Johwa
12 October 2007
Johannesburg — A CAREER intelligence operative will become the co-ordinator of intelligence next month, taking over from Barry Gilder, who will retire.
This was announced by intelligence services spokesperson Lorna Daniels yesterday.
The new man, Silumko Sokupa, is largely unknown - even in intelligence circles.
He is presently deputy director-general of the foreign intelligence service, the South African Secret Service .
The co-ordinator for intelligence heads the National Intelligence Co-ordinating Committee, which has been tasked with integrating and interpreting information provided by various intelligence structures.
The committee is composed of the heads of the secret service, its domestic intelligence equivalent - the National Intelligence Agency - the police's crime intelligence agency, defence intelligence and the directors-general in the Presidency and the foreign affairs department.
It is responsible for briefing the cabinet and its committees on intelligence priorities and also runs a national early warning centre that anticipated threats, and was linked to a regional centre in Gaborone.
Sokupa's appointment comes as the intelligence community has increasingly been drawn into the ANC succession race.
Control of intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in the run-up to the ANC's December conference and the controversy surrounding national police commissioner Jackie Selebi, the Scorpions and the National Prosecuting Authority. Security analysts said that many in the intelligence community were critical of the Scorpions developing their own data-gathering capacity when the law required state agencies to be enlisted for such tasks.
Sokupa worked in intelligence for many years including a stint at the correctional services depart-ment. He also headed the intelligence agency's Eastern Cape office.
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