The President assigns the task of presenting the annual reports or budgets of the National Security apparatus whose appendages are the Intelligence Agencies, to Parliament, a former top intelligence operative who has craved anonymity explained over the weekend.
Speaking to the DAILY GUIDE, he said a report last week suggested that the President has bestowed the supervision of the National Security system and its appendages to the Interior Minister.
“I believe that a reporting blunder has inadvertently created the impression that Mr. President has taken a maiden decision to shift oversight responsibility of the National Security apparatus to the Interior Minister. This leaves one with a thought that Mr. President is not satisfied with the current arrangement and has acted as such” he said.
Continuing he said “under the existing procedure, the National Security Coordinator cannot appear before Parliament to present the annual budget or a report to the House safe through a minister assigned by the President. Such a bestowal should not necessarily be the Interior Minister but any other Minister as the President so desires to carry out such an assignment in Parliament.”
The Security and Intelligence Act-1996 (Act 526) states inter alia that:
The President shall assign ministerial responsibility for the Intelligence Agencies to such Minister as the President shall consider appropriate.
(2) The Minister assigned responsibility under subsection (1) of this section shall in respect of each year submit a report to Parliament on the Intelligence Agencies.
Last week a media report suggested that the National Security Apparatus and its appendages will cease to operate as autonomous body but would come under the Interior Minister; the diktat attributed to the President.
The National Security Council which under the Act establishing it is referred to as the Council, consists of the President, Vice President, the Ministers for the time being holding the portfolios of Foreign Affairs, Defence, Interior and Finance and such other Ministers as the President may determine.
Others are the Chief of the Defence Staff and two members of the Armed Forces, the Inspector General of Police and two members of the Police Service one of whom shall be the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Criminal Investigations Department and the Director General of the Prisons Service, the Director of External Intelligence, the Director of Internal Intelligence. The rest are the Director of Military Intelligence, the Commissioner of Customs, Excise and Preventive Service; and three persons appointed by the President.
<<Print>>