With South Africa’s intelligence services found grotesquely wanting before and during the looting and destruction of July President Cyril Ramaphosa has removed the minister of intelligence and not replaced her at all. Instead, the agencies, domestic and foreign, will report into the presidency itself. That’s led some people to argue this is Cyril Ramaphosa empowering himself. But that may not be the case. In this edition of Podcasts from the Edge former spy, diplomat and head of the South African Secret Service, Moe Shaik, tells Peter Bruce that Ramaphosa has returned to the original intent in 1994 when the intelligence services were run by a co-ordinator, Joe Nhlanhla. The idea was always that they reported to the presidency. Ramaphosa, reckons Shaik, is doing absolutely the right thing.

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