The Scorpions continue to suffer setbacks in their battle to remain independent of the police. A top official, implicated in the misappropriation of funds meant for informers, resigned this week just as President Thabo Mbeki began considering Judge Sisi Khampepe’s interim report on the mandate and location of the unit.
Jeffrey Ledwaba, the deputy head of the Directorate of Special Operations, has resigned, effective from the end of August, according to an email circulated to Scorpions staff this week.
The Mail & Guardian reported on May 13 that Ledwaba had been placed on ”special leave” by National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) chief Vusi Pikoli while investigators probed the misappropriation of more the R600 000 from a fund set up to pay informers.
The findings of that investigation are not clear, but the resignation — which follows an earlier offer to quit, but which Ledwaba withdrew — comes at an awkward time for the Scorpions.
The Khampepe commission has not so much ended the political battle over the future of the directorate as moved it behind closed doors, and tensions within the African National Congress and the government over the issue persist.
Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula is among those pressing for the directorate to be moved from the NPA to his own department.
The ANC’s national general council (NGC) last month resolved ”to support that there be a single national police service in line with the South African Constitution”, a statement broadly interpreted by both the government and ANC officials as meaning that only the South African Police Service (SAPS) should have powers of arrest, and the Scorpions could not continue to function in their current form.
The decision received little public notice amid the controversy surrounding sacked deputy president Jacob Zuma, party restructuring, and proposed economic policy shifts. It followed debate in a closed session of the NGC’s peace and security committee over proposals by Nqakula that the directorate come under the control of his department.
Nqakula suggested a move for the Scorpions as part of a three-pronged restructuring proposal that would have seen police forensic capabilities hived off to the Department of Science and Technology, and the planned shift of responsibility for mortuaries to the Department of Health accelerated.
Despite considerable support for his approach, people present at the meeting say, a specific resolution on the Directorate of Special Operations was rejected in favour of slightly more ambiguous language after delegates agreed that it would be unwise to be seen as pre-empting Judge Khampepe’s findings. The principle of a single police force also reaffirms the decision to merge the rural commando units of the defence force into the police.
The forensics proposal — which one delegate described as ”bizarre” — was not adopted. On the contrary, the NGC resolved that forensic laboratories, which have been struggling with staff capacity and funding problems, must remain within the SAPS.
Asked about the rationale for these proposals, Nqakula’s spokesperson, Trevor Bloem, stressed that Nqakula had been speaking in his ANC capacity, not as a minister. It would not be appropriate to comment on the location of the Scorpions while the Khampepe commission was sitting, Bloem said.
Support for a move to the police is far from uniform within the ANC, however. Kader Asmal, who sits on the party’s national executive committee and chairs Parliament’s portfolio committee on defence, submitted to Judge Khampepe a ringing defence of the Scorpions. The unit’s effectiveness was a result of its composition, its location within the NPA, its high level of skills and resources, and the vigour with which it carried out its work, he argued.
”Relocating the [directorate] in the SAPS would amount to the destruction of the [directorate].”
This is a view shared by several senior ANC figures, who point out that cooperation between investigators and prosecutors is integral to the success of the Scorpions in complex cases. Prosecutors work for the Department of Justice and cannot, in terms of the Constitution, move to the police.
The ambiguity of Minister of Justice and Constitutional Development Brigitte Mabandla’s position on the issue is an apparent source of anxiety within the justice hierarchy. It has ratcheted tensions in her relationship with Deputy Minister Johnny de Lange that have already been sharpened by differences over how to handle controversial judicial reforms.
The NPA has made a submission to the Khampepe commission, but insiders say they believe the Justice Ministry has not. Nor has Mabandla been conspicuous in efforts to lobby support for the unit. ”If anyone should be fighting for the Scorpions it is justice,” one insider told the M&G.
Kaizer Kganyago is spokesperson for both Mabandla and Judge Khampepe. He said that because of his responsibility to keep confidential the proceedings of the commission he couldn’t answer questions about Mabandla’s views on the ANC resolution, or say whether she or the department had made a submission to the commission.
A number of the submissions made so far had not fully addressed the terms of reference of the commission, Kganyago said; their authors would now have until August 12 to make revisions before Judge Khampepe made her final deliberations.