Why fix it?

Why, in God’s name, do the Scorpions need to be dissolved into the South African Police Service (SAPS)?

The African National Congress (ANC) has said it is a “constitutional imperative” that a single police service be implemented.

Is this an attempt by the ruling party to punish the directorate for fingering senior members of the party, among them its president, Jacob Zuma, and police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, or is it merely an administrative streamlining exercise?

At present, six of the ANC’s national executive committee members are the subject of criminal investigations. At least two of these are currently being investigated by the Scorpions.

To recap: the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) came into operation amid much fanfare in 2001, and falls under the National Prosecuting Authority. It has teams of prosecutors, analysts and investigating officers who have managed to achieve a prosecution rate of about 85%. By contrast, the SAPS achieves a rate of roughly 30% to 40%.

Now the ANC wants the investigating officers folded back into the SAPS.

Opposition parties, among them Bantu Holomisa’s United Democratic Movement, has threatened to take the government to the Constitutional Court if the ANC pursues the matter.

“In time, further investigations by the Scorpions would no doubt reveal the extent of the web of corruption surrounding the ANC,” said Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille, adding that the decision to disband the Scorpions is clearly an attempt to destroy the most effective corruption-busting force in the country.

Why try to fix it if it’s not broken?

FULL SPEED AHEAD	NOT SO FAST
Eskom call-centre staff Spare a thought for the good men and women in Eskom’s call centres — they’re taking strain fielding between 30 000 and 50 000 calls every day from South Africans seeking news about load-shedding. The least we can do is to stop sending them those Eskom jokes.	Ferdie Barnard Barnard, a convicted apartheid assassin, thinks he has served his time and now wants a presidential pardon. He was convicted in 1998 of, among other crimes, murdering anti-apartheid activist David Webster outside his home in Troyeville. He has served 10 years and now wants out. We disagree.

Most-read stories
January 17 to 23

1. Mbeki’s mad dash to save Selebi
Information pieced together by the Mail & Guardian suggests the Presidency, the Justice and Constitutional Development Department, National Intelligence Agency and South African Police Service joined in a desperate effort to prevent police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi from being charged.

2. ‘Me and Mbeki come from far’
Disgraced police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi owes his dizzying rise after 1990 to his close personal bond with President Thabo Mbeki and the latter’s direct sponsorship, commentators agree.

3. ANC rogues’ gallery
The ANC elected its new 80-member national executive committee at December’s Polokwane conference. The Mail & Guardian opened the ruling party’s closet and scary skeletons came tumbling out, including those of seven criminals elected to the party’s second-highest decision-making structure.

4. Zuma gives up Mbeki’s weekly online column
Having taken it over last week from his predecessor, Thabo Mbeki, newly elected leader of the African National Congress (ANC) Jacob Zuma is giving up his weekly pulpit in the ANC’s online newsletter, ANC Today.

5. Public Protector queries power cuts
The Public Protector is considering investigating Eskom’s power failures, which have recently left many parts of South Africa without electricity for hours at a time due to load-shedding.

6. Zuma goes after Rapport — again
African National Congress president Jacob Zuma is claiming R5-million from Rapport for defamation and crimen injuria, his spokesperson Liesl Gottert said on Thursday.

7. Executive cop-out
President Thabo Mbeki’s disingenuous handling of the charges against police commissioner Jackie Selebi provides a perfect illustration of why ordinary ANC members no longer want him as their leader. He does not talk straight and consistently fails to take South Africa into his confidence. In his management of a slew of controversies in the past nine years he has forfeited the nation’s trust, too.

8. Lekota: ‘I have learned a hard lesson’
Defence Minister Mosiuoa Lekota was on Friday sentenced to a R5 000 fine or 12 months’ imprisonment for reckless and negligent driving.

9. Deputy chief justice to answer ANC critics
Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke will answer his critics in the African National Congress (ANC) and its youth league in a statement to be issued on Thursday.

10. Yummy mummy wannabe
Six months after giving birth to her daughter, Eva, Orlaith McAllister had her breasts done, going from a C cup to a D cup. ‘I breastfed for five weeks and I noticed that my breasts got smaller, especially on one side,” she says. ‘When Eva was born, she latched on to the left breast immediately and got to like that one, so it was noticeably smaller.