South Africa and France have entered into a cooperation protocol agreement to improve the Special Investigating Unit’s cyber forensic capabilities.
The agreement is expected to lead to the establishment of an anti-corruption academy in Tshwane, which will serve the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and other law enforcement agencies and anti-corruption agencies within the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Commonwealth and Non-Commonwealth countries.
It was signed by Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Ronald Lamola, and French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, Catherine Colonna, on Monday.
Lamola said the cooperation agreement will add much needed skills to strengthen the SIU’s capacity in cyberforensic investigations, financial crimes and analytical skills.
The French Minister pointed out that 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 trained trainers who possess the capability to train other investigators.
“Since the very early stages of our cooperation, members of the SIU have been to France and have had opportunities …to see and experience the French expertise in the field of mostly cyber investigations. I call for those exchanges to grow,” she said.
