PAUL HOFFMAN: Corruption busters needed now, with chapter 9 protection
A body similar to the Scorpions but without its vulnerabilities must be put together to save SA from rampant graft
With the Zondo commission reaching the end of its work on the attempted and partial capture of the state during the Zuma era, attention is turning to the reform of the criminal justice administration with a view to avoiding a repetition of the cronyism, patronage, looting and kleptocracy that marked that era.
Before Zuma, SA had the Directorate of Special Operations, better known as the Scorpions. This unit within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) was closed down in terms of a resolution taken the moment Jacob Zuma took control of the ANC in 2007. Good Scorpions resigned in droves before the highly contested legislative process ended in 2009. In April 2008 Gwede Mantashe explained to Helen Zille, then leader of the DA, that the Scorpions had treated the ANC “like the enemy”, that he viewed its investigation of Zuma as “an abuse of power”, and bluntly indicated that the ANC wanted the Scorpions disbanded because they were “prosecuting ANC leaders”...
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