National Intellgience (sic) Agency director general Manala Manzini told the Ginwala commission today he was shocked to find that six out of nine Directorate of Special Operations staffers did not have the necessary security clearance.

Testifying at the hearings into National Director of Public Prosecutions boss Vusi Pikoli's fitness to hold office, he said nine DSO operatives had submitted forms to the NIA, via the police, for them to have access to classified information.

"I must say we were amazed, we were shocked in fact, to discover that senior members of he DSO deliberately lied and misled he police by giving information that was not correct... Information relation(ed) to their security clearance," said Manzini.

He said the clearance of two individuals was not valid and one was not even registered with the NIA.

He said that senior prosecutor Gerrie Nel responded by saying that it was not a deliberate attempt to mislead him.

Nel had said he himself had only been a case manager and the people concerned had not known that their clearance had expired.

They also believed that they were evidence gathering, not intelligence gathering.

Backlogs had also been experienced with their clearance applications.

Manzini rejected this, saying they received monthly clearance status reports and that the backlogs were due to bureaucracy within the DSO.

Besides, it was the DSO's responsibility to meet these requirements.

"I don't see how else it can be explained except to deliberately mislead," he said.

He said the company that conducted the raids at the Union Buildings, in relation to the investigation against then deputy president Jacob Zuma, had not been vetted to do so because its director had been implicated in criminal activities.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Business Day.