First published in the Daily Maverick 168 weekly newspaper. Documents in a court action have revealed how SAPS Crime Intelligence attempted to have R45-million released from the Secret Service Account (SSA) in 2017 to deal with a “possible national security threat” of some “magnitude” before the ANC’s highly charged elective conference at Nasrec in Johannesburg in 2017. Lieutenant General Francinah Vuma, divisional commissioner: financial management and administration, in an affidavit to the South Gauteng High Court, set out how that December a “minister in the security cluster” had alerted then president Jacob Zuma of the alleged imminent force majeure. The nature of this threat, which warranted the secret and emergency procurement of a listening device – known as a grabber – at the outrageously inflated price of R45-million, has not yet been disclosed or determined.