Would-be Public Protector Muvhango Lukhaimane said that, as State Security human resources manager, she hadn't known about ghost worker spooks. And Deputy Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka told MPs that, as adviser to former finance minister Malusi Gigaba, she hadn't known of his links to the Gupta brothers.

Eyebrows shot up at current Pension Funds Adjudicator Muvhango Lukhaimane's response to a question on her good governance track record at the State Security Agency (SSA), given publicly identified corruption such as the unlawful parallel intelligence programme Principal Agent Network (PAN).

"I will say, given the controls that we put in place, one of the outcomes was that people resorted to PAN," Lukhaimane told DA MP Werner Horn, adding later, "PAN was not overt, but covert. Once it goes and gets run as a covert operation, resources are allocated and you almost have a structure that is a duplicate".

Responding to Horn's questions about "ghost spooks", she said she wasn't involved in the so-called covert side, but only the human resources side with the SSA's 230 or so employees.

On that overt side, Lukhaimane said, "We put together an integrated system. HR was integrated with finance and document management. We accounted for people, resources and operation reports".

Lukhaimane worked at SSA from May 2007 to mid-2011 as general manager of research and then human resources, according to her CV, which also lists State Security HQ Musanda as a workplace.

From June 2011 until she was appointed Pension Funds Adjudicator...