The need for the Scorpions no longer existed and they should be transferred to the police, the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union (Popcru) told the Khampepe Commission in Pretoria on Monday.
”The South African Police Service (SAPS) has undergone serious transformation and has the skills, training and capability to deal with the crimes the Scorpions deal with,” said Popcru deputy general secretary Nkosinathi Theledi.
The commission headed by Judge Sisi Khampepe is deciding whether the Scorpions — which conduct prosecution-led investigations — should be incorporated into the SAPS or remain part of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), as its Directorate of Special Operations (DSO).
Members of the elite crime-fighting unit were initially attracted by its favourable working conditions — depleting the capacity of the SAPS and other law enforcement agencies, said Theledi: ”This state of events was not intended by President Thabo Mbeki,” he said.
However, since then it had not embarked on proper training and was now losing members because of its reliance on consultants.
”[The] DSO outsources most of its functions, such as forensic investigations, to consultants at astronomical costs,” he said.
This was untenable as it resulted in a skills drain and was not economically viable.
Distrust between the police and Scorpions hampered the sharing of information and intelligence skills, said Theledi, adding that the failure to establish jurisdictional guidelines made co-operation impossible.
Popcru went on to accuse the NPA of referring to the DSO cases likely to produce a successful prosecution.
”Upon closer scrutiny, the DSO’s cases are not necessarily more complicated, they just have better resources to do the same amount of work as other agencies,” Theledi said, recommending that the Scorpions’ intelligence and investigative capacity be relocated under the police.
The commission opened on Monday with complaints by George Bizos SC, for the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), about confidential information leaked to two Sunday newspapers.
The NIA had submitted an unsigned document containing the information to the commission, but had later withdrawn it as it did not comply with the commission’s rules. It was not returned to the NIA
”I will not brook any breach of confidentiality,” reacted Khampepe.
”The integrity of this process is dependent on maintaining confidentiality at the highest level,” she said. – Sapa