PETER BRUCE: We need to bring back investigative prosecutors with a real sting
This must become a key metric by which we can measure the success or otherwise of Cyril Ramaphosa as a leader
Napoleon Bonaparte was an arrogant little chap. He famously said of his great enemy (the English, before they defeated and imprisoned him) that they were "une nation de boutiquiers" (a nation of shopkeepers). Having swiped the line from Adam Smith anyway, there would have been little chance of him recognising that while the English had their foibles, so did the French. France was, and still is, a nation of bureaucrats. There’s no piece of paper in France that doesn’t need a stamp licked onto it. In any of the Napoleonic bureaucracies, getting the most simple thing done can make you cry it takes so long. This has been solved, typically, by the rise of an industry of managers who do the work and get the papers for you. They have echoes in the young men who loiter around our home affairs or licence offices offering to speed things up for a fee. But the one thing the French, Italians and Spanish have that they can thank Napoleon for are criminal prosecution services that have the power ...
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