March 13 to 19 2009

Wrong conclusion

I do not know how your award-winning journalist, Sam Sole, arrived at the conclusion that the process of dismantling the Scorpions appears to be inept and ill-planned (‘Scorpions snafu weakens prosecution”, March 6). He is not privy to the deliberations between the two joint task teams from the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the South African Police Service (SAPS) that are dealing with the mechanisms and the modalities to be put in place to ensure the smooth transition of the Scorpions investigators into the police.

What is most flabbergasting is the assertion that his imaginary shortcomings about the incorporation process would undermine the capacity to fight organised crime. In fact, the opposite is correct. Sole mentions four things that, in his view, make life difficult for the Scorpions’ transfer to the SAPS:

• The process is effectively discouraging Scorpions from transferring to the new unit;
• Scorpions investigations are being jeopardised by loss of staff and uncertainty;
• The police have adopted an aggressive stance over the integration, which has further alienated Scorpions staff; and
• The structure of the new police unit will promote the politicisation of investigations.

He doesn’t mention or substantiate his allegations on the issues listed above. In the two roadshows that I attended in the two regional offices of the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), Western Cape and Gauteng, the DSO investigators freely, frankly and robustly expressed their fears and concerns, and those concerns were answered satisfactorily.

The main concern was that they are not guaranteed automatic entry into the new unit, the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigation, and it was explained to them that the two joint task teams are crafting the selection criteria, which has to be ratified by the head of the new unit. The other issue they were concerned about is vetting. The discourse with the investigators encouraged them to apply after the head of the new unit has been appointed.

The two committees have been working tirelessly to operationalise and implement the SAPS Amendment Act and the NPA Amendment Act signed on February 20 2009. I suspect that those members who feel alienated are scared of the strict selection criteria, which includes, inter alia, top-secret clearance, a poly­graph test and a competency test. But if you know you have been ethical and professional in your conduct you have nothing to fear and thus no reason for uncertainty.

How is the structure of the new unit, which Sole doesn’t even know, going to promote the politicisation of investigations? Perhaps at some point Sole will have the courage of his convictions and tell us how the investigations will be politicised.

The media statement issued by the police under my name a fortnight ago, which Sole quotes, speaks of the interim working together of the DSO with the specialised detective units of the SAPS: organised crime and commercial crime, with effect from March 1. As public servants we have the obligation to implement legislation. I don’t see any ‘characteristic of police attitudes” here.

The audits were conducted jointly by committees from both the SAPS and the NPA. Essentially, the main aim was to limit longer term liabilities to be incurred by the DSO. What is most significant is that there is a joint operational management team, agreed upon by the ministers of both institutions. Nothing has been done without the approval and concurrence of the respective ministers.

It is untrue that the national commissioner, Jackie Selebi, who is on ‘extended leave of absence”, will play a significant role in the setting up and functioning of the unit. He has not been involved in the affairs of the SAPS since he went on leave in January 2008.

Many DSO investigators have told us that they had applied to the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) for top security clearances, and that process is taking a long time. Our crime intelligence (CI) representative on the committee suggested that we can assist with a view to expediting the process. The acting head of CI, Commissioner Mulangi Mphego, who is facing charges of defeating the ends of justice from the Scorpions, has absolutely nothing to do with the process, and he is not involved at all. — Selby Bokaba, SAPS director of communications

We should do more to boost tech start-ups

The editorial comment in the Mail & Guardian insert Edge on the Technology Top 100 (TT100) Awards from (February 27) makes positive and self-congratulatory noises about the ‘technological prowess of South Africa”. The facts speak very differently.

Only 70-odd organisations entered the competition. If one breaks these down into different sectors (say 10) and company sizes (say three), there are barely two entrants per category. Little wonder that most of the prize-winners appear in two or more categories and three prizes were not even awarded.

In fairness, the aims of the TT100 are admirable. The problem is that South Africa continues to mistake activity for action in the area of innovation and avoids measuring hard metrics and facts. The department of science and technology’s own insert advertises that the ‘success [of the Ten-Year Innovation Plan] will be measured by the extent to which science, technology and innovation play a driving role in enhancing productivity, economic growth and socioeconomic development”.

This is rather surprising given that no such exercise has ever, to my own knowledge, been carried out on any of their interventions, nor did it precede the recent formation of the Technology Innovation Agency. There has never been a fact-based review of venture capital in South Africa. It barely exists here. The various government-based interventions such as the Innovation Fund are well intended but, again, reference to the various indicators, such as those published by the National Council on Innovation (NACI), suggest that these have had no benign effect to date.

A summary glance at the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research’s (CSIR) website shows that the outputs ‘for licence” from a R1-billion-a-year budget are a few indigenous medicines and a few old chestnuts that have been around for years. The CSIR should be producing several exciting technology start-ups per year (as should our universities and other research institutions). Is nobody noticing that this is not happening?

My own estimates and experience suggest there have been about 100 technology start-ups in South Africa that have received venture funding in the past 10 years. Israel is producing about 400 a year and it is claimed that there are about 3 000 within a 30km radius of Cambridge in the United Kingdom alone. The point is that we need to start to measure ‘return on investment” for the taxpayer, quantify targets and put in place feedback loops to ensure they are met.

The approach of wheeling out the same one or two high-profile projects and patting ourselves on the back is fiddling while Rome burns. What is required is a functional partnership between the department of trade and industry, the science and technology department and the private sector (including start-up companies). This partnership should facilitate interventions to reduce the cost of capital to create new ventures while not interfering with their operations. — Dr Richard Doyle

A dangerous suggestion

Chantelle Wyley proposes the ‘inexpensive production of homeopathic remedies — for rural clinic-based medicine” (March 6). To back up her proposal she offers anecdotal evidence of her family’s medical history.

Wyley’s basic family-hygiene practices must be assumed to be pretty good. Just having access to the M&G and the opportunity to pen a response indicates her family probably falls into the top 5% in respect of family income.

Studies of homoeopathy show no more benefit than placebo effect, and this in First World countries. It does not follow that a health practice with poor success rates in First World countries will translate to benefits for rural communities. It is, in fact, a frightening thought — diseases like cholera, tuberculosis and Aids will spread more quickly when treated by homeopathy alone.

Homeopathy focuses on the individual as a ‘whole” and matches treatment to symptom. Allopathic medicine attempts to find and treat the cause. Cholera was not banished from Britain by homeopathic medicine but by research into geographical frequency distribution of sufferers, which led to the discovery that it was water-borne and a consequence of poor hygiene. Smallpox has been eliminated because of vaccination, not by homoeopathic remedies.

Consultations by homeopaths take longer and studies show patients feel more connected to them than their allopathic counterparts. It is difficult to see how an already struggling primary-healthcare system in rural clinics can afford to take more time to look at patients ‘holistically”. Even if they do, it is hard to believe a holistic approach will see more than the poverty most rural families are attempting to survive.

Wyley resorts to the usual rhetoric of all woo-mongers: that the belief they propose cannot be measured by the standards they apply to all other practices. By refusing to be measured by medical science, and by making claims beyond the measurement of science, it falls into the category of faith healing.

I do not doubt Wyley’s belief that homeopathy is good for her family’s health. I do not begrudge the medical aids accepting some homeopathic treatments either.

It is dangerous, however, to expand from a survey of a single family to a belief that homeopathy will benefit tens of millions whose financial and hygiene circumstances are significantly poorer. — Kevin Charleston, Kenilworth

Zapiro ridicules Christianity

In your February 27 edition cartoonist Zapiro had yet another cartoon showing a scene sacred to Christians — Thabo Mbeki as Christ on the cross. Previously he has shown Robert McBride as Jesus rising from the dead, and a scene of the nativity.

Christianity and Islam have both, over the ages, been guilty of cruelty, folly and bigotry. But Zapiro specifically lampoons Christianity and never Islam (as opposed to cartoons that lampoon religion in general).

Go on, Zapiro! Give us a cartoon of Mohammed naked except for a bit of cloth across his genitals, looking like a local politician! Take a sacred scene from the Qur’an and make a joke of it for political reasons!

Zapiro’s failure to do so suggests that he feels he can treat Christianity with ridicule but treats Islam with grovelling fear and respect. Readers might get a sense of hypocrisy and cowardice.

Let me confess my own religious beliefs. I am an atheist. — Andrew Kenny, Noordhoek

The Zapiro cartoon of February 27 is an insult and blasphemy, more intensely felt because this is a time when many Christians worldwide are meditating on the passion and death of Christ (it is Lent). Your circulation will go down by at least one unless you distance yourself from the cartoon and elicit a full apology from Zapiro. — Rob Sampson, Cape Town

Ageist writing

Mandy Rossouw’s article saying that Pieter-Dirk Uys should retire and enjoy the spoils of apartheid (Friday, March 6) was one of the most ageist and discriminatory pieces of writing I’ve encountered in your newspaper. How dare she suggest that simply because someone has turned 63 they should retire? Some of the world’s top actors are over 60 — Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Ian McKellen … I realise Uys has occasionally become repetitive, but so what? The man is still one of our best political satirists. He generates all his own work, does incredible work for charities in Darling and has to juggle many balls in the air to keep going. — Herman Lategan, Sea Point

In brief

In ‘Gasa accused of graft” (March 6), Four Rivers Trading is alleged to have received R4-million for consulting work done at the Commission for Gender Equality (CGE). We are disappointed that the M&G did not contact Four Rivers to verify its information before publication. We respect the M&G’s right to investigate issues but take a dim view of its failure to contact us. — Four Rivers Trading

Correct me, Mr Balfour, if I am wrong: to secure my release from prison on medical parole, all I require is for three agreeable doctors to declare that I am in the final stages of a terminal illness. Has anyone explained this to Eugene de Kock? — George Niven, Hilton

Dancing in defiance at the prospect of being arrested — sound familiar? No, not Jacob Zuma, but the president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. Al-Bashir also sings the same song as Robert Mugabe, blaming everything on ‘colonialism” while selling two-thirds of his petroleum to China. — Ingela Richardson, Gonubie

I think Drew Forrest (March 6) will find that Erwin Rommel once allegedly remarked that the finest troops he ever encountered were the New Zealanders. I bet the Aussies came second because discipline was a problem. — Robert Reddick, Constantia