”A disgrace”, ”Answers needed” and ”Crushing more than the Scorpions” was how some newspaper editorials reacted on Thursday to Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula’s announcement in Parliament that the Scorpions would be dissolved.
”Disgrace does not begin to describe the decision by the African National Congress to disband the Scorpions,” a front-page editorial in Business Day read.
This followed Nqakula’s announcement during a debate on President Thabo Mbeki’s State of the Nation address on Wednesday in which Nqakula said: ”The Scorpions … will be dissolved and the organised crime unit of the police will be phased out and a new, amalgamated unit will be created.”
The Scorpions are not part of the police but report to the National Prosecuting Authority, which answers to the Justice and Constitutional Development Department.
The ”best experience” of the two bodies will be merged. This, Nqakula said, is part of a ”holistic approach” to the revamp of the criminal justice system, which will have organised crime as one of its main priorities.
”We need proper measures, better human and material resources to achieve our goals in the fight against all crime,” Nqakula said.
He said the ANC is not ”reckless” in piloting a move to ”change for the better” the strategies and tactics necessary to fight crime. ”We are a dynamic organisation that has always seized the moment to rise to higher levels and that is why we continue to occupy the high moral ground,” he said to howls of protest and jeers from some MPs.
The announcement was in line with a resolution taken at the ANC’s national conference in Polokwane in December.
‘Parliament simply does not exist’
Business Day wrote: ”Without advancing a single coherent argument, the ruling party not only decides to get rid of a vanguard force in the fight against organised crime and corruption, it announces it to the world as a fact, as though Parliament simply does not exist.
”Is this the true heart of the ANC? Is this the essence of the movement we danced in the streets for in 1994?”
The Citizen wrote that by making the announcement on Wednesday, Nqakula considered it ”already done and dusted, forgetting the small detail of the move having to be approved by Parliament”.
”The crime-fighting unit was created by an Act of Parliament and must be disbanded by majority vote.”
The editorial continued: ”So much for accountability by government, so much for oversight by those chosen to serve the interests of the people. And so much for consideration of the disapproval of many South Africans.”
”… The burning question is why would the ANC leadership want to disband the very unit it created, and which it now fears because of its success? How many more worms will be concealed in the woodwork with the Scorpions gone?”
The Sowetan wrote that Nqakula should explain why a unit he describes as having the best experience should be merged with another police unit — instead of them complementing one another.
”In the absence of such an explanation, the state’s plan to phase out the Scorpions will be shrouded in suspicion that the crack unit had bitten too close to the bone in the way they pursued their work.”
Beeld said that because the Scorpions were brought to life by Parliament, it was therefore Parliament’s job to dissolve them, not Nqakula’s.
”The minister’s actions strengthen the perception that South Africa is now governed out of Luthuli House in Johannesburg — the seat of the ANC president [Jacob Zuma] — and not out of the Union Buildings in Pretoria, the seat of the president [Thabo Mbeki].
Beeld continued that it was the Zuma faction within the ANC that want to take the sting out of the Scorpions who had brought Zuma to court [for a forthcoming fraud and corruption trial].
It would be interesting to hear what Mbeki said when he replied to the debate, the newspaper said.
Arrogant
In reaction earlier this week, Independent Democrats leader Patricia de Lille said it was very arrogant for Nqakula to undermine Parliament’s authority by announcing the Scorpions’ dissolution.
She said the Scorpions had been established by an act of Parliament. ”And the procedures must start here in Parliament. [It is] not for the executive to announce the dissolution of the Scorpions,” she said.
Also, if Mbeki had acted earlier concerning police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, instead of uttering the phrase ”I trust you,” the country would have been in a much stronger position in the fight against crime, De Lille said.
Efforts to ”blackmail” MPs into accepting the disbanding of the Scorpions will be vigorously resisted, United Democratic Movement leader Bantu Holomisa said. ”Any attempt to blackmail this house to bend backwards and forwards to accommodate the campaigners for the disbanding [of the Scorpions] will be resisted,” he said. – Sapa