South Africa made a major mistake in 2009 when it disbanded the Directorate of Special Operations (DSO), commonly known as the Scorpions, and the unit should be resurrected, says ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula.
And in a wide-ranging interview with the Sunday Times, he said the electorate was so fed up that he had the impression support for the ruling party could be as low as 30%.
Discussing the Scorpions, he said that such an investigations body was essential in the fight against crime, which is spiralling out of control.
Listen to the conversation with Mbalula:
Mbalula said disbanding the Scorpions — an initiative he spearheaded as a leader of the ANC Youth League — had emasculated the state’s law enforcement capacity.
Established by the then president Thabo Mbkei in 1999, the DSO was a specialised unit of the National Prosecuting Authority tasked with investigating and prosecuting high-level and priority crimes, including organised crime and corruption.
It combined investigation, forensic intelligence and prosecution, and was involved in several high-profile cases including Jacob Zuma’s arms deal charges and the prosecutions of Tony Yengeni and national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.
After it was disbanded, its prosecutors were absorbed into the NPA and its investigators moved to the new Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as the Hawks. The decision was at the time seen by some as a political move.
“The model of the Scorpions seemed to be working for us at that time, and to be honest the ANC needs to go back to that,” Mbalula said.
He admitted he had been among those who had criticised the Scorpions’ “Hollywood-style” arrests, which were made in the public eye and embarrassed high-ranking politicians.
“We were very big critics of the Scorpions, about the way to arrest. But from a quality point of view criminals knew that [when you were] surrounded by the Scorpions, it’s game over,” he said.
The state was now struggling to obtain convictions, especially for white collar crimes, the ANC secretary-general said.
Members of the unit had received top-notch training from the FBI and Scotland Yard, which was why it had a high conviction rate. Criminals knew “once they take you to court there is no chance” of getting off.
The state needed to “up its game” in taking on syndicates such as the scrap metal industries and illegal miners, Mbalula said, and to achieve this the ANC would push for the return of the Scorpions or something similar.
Four years ago, in the wake of the Zondo commission revelations, President Cyril Ramaphosa set up the Investigating Directorate (ID) in the office of the national director of public prosecutions.
It operates in a similar way to the Scorpions but has so far recorded few major successes, due in part to lack of resources.
The model of the Scorpions seemed to be working for us at that time, and to be honest the ANC needs to go back to that
— Fikile Mbalula
“From the point of the ANC, we will direct government to move into that gear now in terms of resourcing, and at the same time upgrading the skills levels of our elite police group that fight organised crime,” Mbalula said.
Scrapping the Scorpions had “watered down” law enforcement and “really weakened the capacity of the state to respond, not to petty issues but to seriously complicated issues”.
Justice minister Ronald Lamola this week told parliament that the government wanted to make the ID a permanent structure.
“The NPA Amendment Bill seeks to amend the legislation to make the ID a permanent agency in the NPA and not one created and maintained or disbanded by proclamation. The bill also aims to enhance the powers of the ID.”
Mbalula also spoke about the ANC’s fortunes in next year’s elections, suggesting the negative national mood presaged a daunting task for the party’s campaign.
He said things were so bad the party was likely to lose a great deal of support.
“With all the challenges and the mood in the country that we’ve got now, with the electricity and the anger, only a fool can ululate for a 60% polling.
“I get shocked that the ANC is polling at 59%-60%, I’m expecting the ANC to be polling at 30%. The mood is not right, people are not happy about load-shedding, I feel it myself.”
With all the challenges and the mood in the country that we’ve got now, with the electricity and the anger, only a fool can ululate for a 60% polling. I get shocked that the ANC is polling at 59%-60%, I’m expecting the ANC to be polling at 30%
— Fikile Mbalula
Mbalula also spoke about the ANC’s finances, suggesting the party was living beyond its means.
He said the ANC’s ballooning monthly salary bill of almost R20m was unsustainable.
“The ANC became a welfare in a way because these are people who came from exile and had never worked anywhere and if you take them off the payroll where do they go?
“There’s no way you can be expected to run political programmes and then on the other hand run a bill of R20m per month, it’s not possible.”
Mbalula was confident that Ramaphosa was a “good candidate” for the ANC heading into the election, even though there were negative sentiments around him.
“There’s now criticism coming from groupings in society who were [previously] thinking highly of the president, [but] that criticism is not criticism that [rules] him out,” he said.
“Business has got their issues and they say ‘We have to resolve, instead of just criticising, to come in and help and move certain things in a particular direction.’ Those people are not saying ‘we are ready to embrace a new alternative’. They are saying ‘those who want to govern will not govern better than what we have, we can fix this’.”
On the Russia-Ukraine issue, Mbalula said he was “shocked” that the US had not recalled its ambassador Reuben Brigety after he accused South Africa of supplying arms to Russia.
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