Eskom in new deal to speed up security vetting

Cape Town - Eskom announced on Friday that it has entered into a collaborative agreement with the State Security Agency (SSA) on security vetting.

“The Memorandum of Understanding gives Eskom the mandate to establish Vetting Fieldwork Units to conduct vetting investigations internally on behalf of SSA," said Eskom divisional executive for security Tebogo Rakau.
 
"SSA shall be responsible for training internal Eskom Vetting Investigators free of charge and may assist on the recruitment of the vetting staff.”  

Eskom aspires to ensure that vetting applications, once accepted by the vetting function, should not take more than four months before security clearances are issued to applicants.

“The days of waiting for security clearances for years are coming to an end,” Rakau said.

The vetting process is guarded by strict confidentiality clauses which are audited by the SSA and internally by Eskom from time to time.

Eskom employees and contractors who have access to classified information and/or National Key Points, but currently do not have valid SSA security clearances are by law required to complete the declaration of secrecy forms before such access is granted.