Foreign agencies hard at work to distabilise South Africa: minister

Some foreign agencies are hard at work to destabilise South Africa working with domestic forces who are wittingly and unwittingly collaborating, Security Minister David Mahlobo warned on Tuesday.

"As a maturing constitutional democracy, we must be in a position to deal decisively with whatever challenges we face in our governance framework, whether it be economic, social or political issues. We must never yield to some domestic and international forces that might harbour intentions of creating conditions conducive to unconstitutional change of government," the minister said.

Illegal migration and the irregular movement of commodities remain a foremost challenge in all dimensions of securing and managing South African borders, he said.

"Our challenges remain because of the vastness of the land, marine and airspace borders, compounded by several challenges like corrupt officials, physical infrastructure weaknesses, inadequacy of our technology and poor coordination," said Mahlobo.

He said South Africa is on track to establish a Border Management Agency, which is currently led by the Department of Home Affairs.

"Despite the deterioration of global security we concluded that South Africa remains relatively stable.

"However we remain vigilant because our national security threats do not play themselves in a vacuum but come into a sharper focus within a specific context," he said.

Mahlobo also vowed to fight illicit financial outflows.

He said South Africa is estimated to be losing over 80 billion rand (about 5.6 billion U.S. dollars) per annum through illicit financial outflows, while illicit outflows from Africa could be as much as 1.16 trillion rand (about 80 billion dollars) per annum.

Work is being done by intelligence agencies including the relevant treasuries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region and on the continent to mitigate the situation, Mahlobo said.

"In the year ahead we will strengthen our partnership with the South African Revenue Service in our effort to fight illicit economic activities. It is only by combining our forces that we can effectively dismantle criminal networks which need financial resources to flourish and expand," he said. Endit