Sunday Times. 27/1/2008 — 01/27/2008
ELECTORATE SHOULD DECIDE ON SCORPIONS
Mondli Makhanya
Leading members of the ANC want to disband the elite Scorpions investigative unit by incorporating it in the SA Police Service. The  formal title of the Scorpions is the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO). It is a multidisciplinary agency that investigates and prosecutes organized crime and corruption and is a unit of The National Prosecuting Authority. Its staff of 2000 consist of the best police, financial, forensic and intelligence experts of South Africa. They came into operation on 12 January 2001. The view is widely held that the Scorpions, who ihave preparted corruption charges against Jacob Zuma (who has replaced Thabo Mbeki as ANC president), were getting too close to the truth. Below is comment on their proposed closure by Mondli Makhanya, courageous editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times.

Unrepentant criminals decide to disband vital crime-fighting unit
The men and women of the ANC's National Executive Committee gathered last week to deliberate on important challenges facing this nation. In their midst was one Tony Yengeni, a convicted fraudster who has very little regard for the law. (And who also likes wearing brightly coloured jackets, obviously under the misapprehension that he is stylish. That in itself should probably be a disqualifier for office). At any rate, Yengeni is an unrepentant criminal who has been given the task of helping to set the country’s political and moral agenda. Present were several other leading lights who have either been investigated for, or convicted of, serious criminal offences. At least a third of the people at Gallagher Estate were individuals of highly questionable ethics. Anyway, they sat there, these men and women, and deliberated on our future. They mapped out a strategy on the way forward for the ANC and the republic. And they decided, these men and women, that the most urgent priority facing South Africa's ruling party was the disbanding of the Scorpions and their incorporation into the South African Police Service.
 
The ANC's top priority
Not the electricity blackouts. Not the disastrous matric results of 2007. Not the collapsing health system. Not the dysfunctional municipal system. Not the fact that the country's police chief inhabits the sewers. Absolutely not. The priority for the ruling party this year is to destroy an agency that has been a vital cog in the fight against crime. Coming out of the lekgotla (informal assembly), they announced that the Scorpions would be disbanded within six months, shocking many in our republic who have never known the powers that be to complete any task within that time frame. National Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete told us it was very easy to accomplish this task.
 
ANC Today on dismemberment of the Scorpions
And on the ruling party's website the ANC had this to say: 'While the ANC National Executive Committee lekgotla called for this process to be completed without delay, the organisation is determined that the process be conducted in a systematic and thorough manner. Among other things, government will need to engage in a range of negotiations and consultations with all relevant stakeholders. It will need to do a detailed audit of assets, personnel and investigations; identification and compilation of a report dealing with the legal dimensions, especially in relation to employment issues; and the drafting of the relevant legislation to integrate the investigators into the SAPS and any other legislative amendments which may be required. There is much work that will need to be done, not simply to give effect to this decision, but also to ensure that the process improves both the capacity of the SAPS to investigate crime and that of the NPA to prosecute criminals.'
 
South African criminals and the international Mafia
Now, many reasons have been put forward by ANC apparatchiks on the need for the Scorpions to be incorporated into the SAPS. Most have to do with the fact that the Scorpions investigated high-profile ANC members for corruption, leading to claims that they were waging a vindictive campaign against the ruling party. There have also been strong arguments, unfortunately supported by some facts, that when it came to certain individuals and cases they would just look the other way. And, bizarrely, there have been charges that the Scorpions had been infiltrated by apartheid-era agents. The only rational argument has come in the form of the possible unconstitutionality of having investigating and prosecuting divisions under one roof. Then again, this has not been challenged in the Constitutional Court. There are certainly enough arguments, bizarre and rational, to have a vibrant pro-Scorpions and anti-Scorpions debate. But the case for their existence is overwhelming, especially since our criminals have become important on the international Mafia map.
 
Silent majority in the ANC should speak out
Now we South Africans, all 46 million of us (plus four million Zimbabwean migrants) are at the mercy of the 86-member committee (NEC), a third of whose members are of dubious character. Do we, all 46 million of us (plus the four million Zimbabweans), simply roll over and accept this decision as a fait accompli? Do we accept that the two-thirds majority the ANC received in 2004 gives it licence to do as it wishes until the next elections? In the construction of our democracy, are we prepared to create a culture in which an electoral mandate equals a blank cheque? Is this the kind of democracy the ANC envisages? What has been disappointing in the debate over the future of the Scorpions is the willingness of South Africans to let the new NEC ride roughshod over our wishes. The destruction of the Scorpions is an issue which civil society, organised business and the silent majority within the ANC’s natural support base should use to put the quality of our democracy to the test. The process of destroying the Scorpions should provide the platform to do this. South Africans should be asking the new NEC a simple question: why the haste? Should you not put your decision in the manifesto for next year's election and let the electorate decide whether the country should lose a key part of the anti-crime arsenal?