“We are at an advanced stage to take over that protection,” explained acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khomotso Phahlane at Wednesday’s police committee meeting. But right now there was an interregnum between presidential protection and SAPS VIP bodyguards pending the finalisation of security assessments, including one by the State Security Agency (SSA). “Once it is concluded, there is the hand-over.”

MPs from the ANC, Freedom Front Plus and EFF raised the presidential protection detail for Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who since leaving her AU job is effectively unemployed, but has addressed various ANC meetings countrywide as the ANC Women’s League publicly and officially endorsed her as candidate for party president come the elective national conference in December.

But few actual details emerged. Phahlane stayed away from answering questions from Freedom Front Plus MP Pieter Groenewald on the numbers of protectors and cars involved, and EFF MP Phillip Mhlongo remarked that Dlamini-Zuma’s police protection “puts you right in the square box of ANC factions”.

Instead the acting national SAPS commissioner proffered an explanation involving a one-month’s grace period in which the former AU chair retained her status equivalent to that of a president, threat security assessments and existing prescripts.

“The former AU chairperson would have been entitled to protection in capacity of former AU chairperson… informed by the categorisation by Dirco (Department of International Relations and Co-operation). As AU chairperson she was pitched at the level of president which required [that] her protection is done by the presidential protection unit.”

“Ordinarily, a month following the term of office, her protection would have been terminated. That did not happen. Prior to her term ending there were already threats. Security assessments confirmed threats. It requires of us to intensify the protection of the AU chairperson,” Phahlane told MPs.

Because Dlamini-Zuma is no longer AU chairperson, and a month has passed, it was now a case of “ad hoc protection”, which was allowed by policy and prescript.

In any case, police protection was not unusual, said Phahlane. The SAPS also protected IFP president Mangosuthu Buthelezi, South African Communist Party (SACP) leader Blade Nzimande “even before he became minister”, and the extension of police protection for Cope founder and president Mosiuoa Lekota after he stopped being a minister. The acting national police commissioner’s list also included Julius Malema, who received four bodyguards when president of the ANC Youth League, but now as EFF leader has private protection.

But there appear to be some inconsistencies in the police’s account around the Dlamini-Zuma protection saga.

Last month Dirco publicly said that “courtesies”, linked to the status of AU chairperson being equivalent to that of a president under AU protocols, ended on March 31, 2017. That’s when the new AU chairperson started his job.

The SAPS statement on the controversy issued on Good Friday also did not talk of the nuances Phahlane presented to MPs on Wednesday. It was silent on this one-month window, nor did it outline the difference between protection by the presidential protectors and the VIP protection service.

The Good Friday SAPS statement maintained that Dlamini-Zuma’s presidential protection detail was “fully in accordance with their mandate and prescripts, informed by a threat and security assessment”.

“In terms of the Presidential Protection Unit’s mandate, protection is provided to the president and deputy president of the Republic of South Africa, former presidents, foreign heads of state and their spouses. The Chairperson of the African Union is afforded courtesies given by Dirco with the status of president and while serving in that capacity, Dr Dlamini Zuma, was provided protection according to this prescript.”

Presidential Protection Service boss, Major-General Mxolisi Dladla, was not there to answer MPs’ questions; he was at the World Economic Forum on Africa in Durban.

But Phahlane said he was “glad” MPs raised the issue “for us to clarify and put the matter into context”. He was more reluctant to make available the prescripts and policy document on which the SAPS based its actions. “It could be made available, but within the confines [sic]. It’s not a document that is circulated. It remains classified. We would be very naked (if released),” he said.

It now remains to be seen what happens.

Amid questions over Dlamini-Zuma’s protections detail, the details of how and on what the SAPS’s overall R2.808-billion protection and security services budget is spent escaped scrutiny. DM

Photo: Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson of the African Union Commission attends the first Italy-Africa Ministerial Conference, in Farnesina Palace, Rome, Italy, 18 May 2016. EPA/GIORGIO ONORATI