Challenges in vetting processes delay security clearances for government officials

The Presidency has identified failure by supply chain management officials to subject themselves to polygraph tests and submit financial statements to the State Security Agency (SSA) as a challenge when they are vetted in line with a decade-old Cabinet directive.

Briefing the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on the vetting of officials in the supply chain management per the 2014 Cabinet directive, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation senior official Jonathan Timm said the SSA has reported some challenges that contributed to delays in the vetting of officials.

He said some of the prominent challenges were non-compliance by vetting subjects and failure to submit required documents, mostly financial statements.

The officials were also not submitting the vetting forms and failed to honour or postpone appointments, especially polygraph tests. There was also the issue of the officials’ references not being easily accessible, and the lengthy wait time to receive fingerprints from the SAPS.

Timm said the SSA has developed an action plan to address these challenges.

“The action plan states that security advising should be central to guiding clients on the appropriate grading of posts.” 

He said positions to be vetted were prioritised, such as executive management, supply chain management, security, ICT, and specialised posts.

“Organs of state are conducting their own pre-employment screening as per instructions of the minister. A letter to that effect has been distributed to organs of state.” 

Timm added that the SSA and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) were developing an e-vetting system.

“The implementation of that system will drastically improve the turnaround for vetting.”

He stated that the SSA acting director-general had issued a directive in 2022 to departments to establish vetting field units by 2025 as part of the interventions that included employing graduates to digitise old vetting files.

Scopa Chairperson Songezo Zibi wanted to know what prevented the government from engaging the services of organisations that offered vetting for officials who were not at the top-secret level.

“Are we reasonable to send everybody to SSA, given the size of government? We end up with people in the system not vetted when they don’t need a security clearance,” Zibi said.

DA MP George Atkinson said the delays in conducting security vetting of officials meant that the employment requirements were not met.

He was concerned that the actions of affected individuals could be overturned when challenged in court.

Deputy Minister in the Presidency Kenny Morolong said there was a need to build capacity.

“(The) Department of Public Service and Administration can give a model that can work better than expanding the capacity we have in the state,” Morolong said.

He also said there was work to build capacity, such as the vetting of field units as a response to the identified gaps.

“We need to ensure that they are fully capacitated to discharge their responsibility before looking for external capacity,” added Morolong.

Cape Times