South Africa and France have come to an agreement for a cooperation protocol to improve the Special Investigating Unit’s cyber forensic capabilities.
This agreement is meant to help yield the establishment of an anti-corruption academy in Tshwane, which is set to serve the SIU as well as other law enforcement agencies and anti-corruption agencies within the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and as well as in the Commonwealth and non-Commonwealth countries.
Signed by the Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola together with the French minister for Europe and foreign affairs Catherine Colonna on Monday, the agreement will yield results beneficial to the South African citizens and possibly to all the SADC region.
Lamola stressed the importance of this cooperation agreement, and how it will add much-needed skills to strengthen the SIU’s capacity in cyber-forensic investigations, financial crimes and analytical skills. He also revealed that South Africa is going to benefit a lot through this process of training that will enable the forensic cyber capabilities and investigations to be on par with the standards of the world because these types of crimes are no longer just national, they are transnational in nature.
“This kind of cooperation will be of great value and help to us enhance our skills and be able to deal with cybercrime in the country. This will further boost confidence in the investment climate in our country that our cyberspace is safe and if anything happens, we will have the capabilities to investigate,” he added.
Reiterating what Minister Lamola said, the French minister said the agreement represents “a window of what we are promoting in terms of bilateral cooperation”.
“This agreement will yield results beneficial to the South African citizens and possibly to all the SADC region. As a result of the close cooperation from the French experts, the SIU currently has 22 trainers who possess the capability to train other investigators.”- she said.
Additionally, she also said that since the very last stages of the cooperation, members of the SIU have been to France and have had opportunities to see and experience the French expertise in the field of a lot of cyber investigations.
