Opinion

Hardly a day goes by without yet another attack on the Scorpions. If it's not the African National Congress's (ANC's) chief whip threatening to summon the Scorpions to Parliament to explain their Travelgate probe (and disgracefully cheered on by the public protector), it's aggrieved magistrates from KwaZulu-Natal or police accusing them of stifling investigations into their former boss, Bulelani Ngcuka.

Whether it's from victims or rivals, the campaign against the Directorate of Special Operations, to give the Scorpions their official title, is now relentless. They are accused of vindictiveness and hidden agendas. They are criticised sometimes for cherry-picking the best cases — and at other times for dragging their feet on cases that ought to go to court.

They have roused the ire of elements within the ruling party with their investigations of senior political figures. They have elicited resentment and envy from the police, led by commissioner Jackie Selebi, with their higher, sexier public profile and greater success rate. And on top of all that are those dodgy people who have been the subjects of their investigation — and take any chance to get their own back.

But if it seems to be coming at the elite crime-fighting unit from all sides, it is not necessarily an organised campaign.

Rather, critics of all sorts have come of the woodwork lately because the unit is looking vulnerable. More particularly so now that its very existence seems to be threatened, with the proposal — from within the ANC — that it should be moved out of the National Prosecuting Authority and merged into the police now firmly on the table. It's an idea long favoured by powerful folk in the ruling ANC, the cabinet and the police.

Government has made it clear there's no decision yet. And President Thabo Mbeki has now said he will appoint a commissioner to look into the unit's relationship with other crime-fighting entities.

But no one, at this point, is championing the Scorpions. We believe they should be championed. Allowing the police to take over the Scorpions would be most unwise. And that is not just because it would look bad politically — though it would, suggesting government and the ruling party are too scared and autocratic to allow the continued existence of a unit that has gone up against the likes of the deputy president.

No, the reason it would be unwise to get rid of the Scorpions is that it would be bad for SA, cutting its chances of fighting crime effectively. There were plenty of good reasons to set up the unit six years ago, as the multi-disciplinary investigating arm of the National Prosecuting Authority, independent of the police. There are several good reasons to keep it — and to ensure it grows stronger, not weaker.

Internationally, complex crime — especially complex organised crime — is generally investigated by task teams that bring together investigators, prosecutors and intelligence people. The Scorpion innovation was to put these together in one organisation with a single command structure that cuts out of a lot of the interagency difficulties that tend to hamper investigations.

A critical advantage the Scorpions have is that they have been able to build up and retain a group of highly skilled investigators, especially skilled financial investigators — when elsewhere the state has been losing people like that to the private sector, where there is strong demand for good forensic investigators. The Scorpions pay better than the police. They also make it possible for good people to remain investigators, rather than becoming managers, as they might have to in order to get promotion and higher salaries in the police.

Crucially, too, the Scorpions team is small and tight enough that it can be monitored carefully — and kept straight. That's in contrast with the police, where corruption is a nagging and big problem, particularly where crime syndicates are involved. SA's police force is one of the world's largest — perhaps too big and bureaucratic to allow the speed and flexibility that investigating sophisticated crime requires.

In any event, much of the police's attention is focused, as it should be, on crime prevention, with only a relatively small part of its resources devoted to serious economic and organised crime.

Taking the Scorpions under police command would effectively mean the end of the unit because the prosecutors could not go with them. The Scorpions would lose their advantage of being prosecution-driven and become accusation-driven, as is the police service.

And though we can sympathise with possible police jealousy of the higher profile and higher salaries the Scorpions enjoy, there's little doubt the formula has been working. The Scorpions can claim a 90% conviction rate — substantially higher than the police. They have successfully brought to book urban terrorists, fraudsters, smugglers, money launderers and hijacking syndicates.

Of course, the police do some of the same. But competition is good. In fact, given the Scorpions' higher success rate, one might even argue that they take over the police, rather than the other way round. That's not entirely in jest — the police are also finding the prosecutor-led model has value, and police and prosecutors are increasingly working together in the specialised courts set up for commercial crime and sexual offences.

Of course, there are issues in terms of whether there is enough independent oversight over the Scorpions' decisions, and whether the division of labour between them and the police is appropriate. Those need addressing in their own right. They don't indicate dissolving the Scorpions or merging them into the police.

Meanwhile, though, the uncertainty about the unit's fate cannot be doing it any good. The longer it goes on, the more skills the unit will lose. Mbeki must appoint his commissioner soon and give it a completely free hand, unambiguous terms of reference (unlike the Hefer commission) and a firm deadline.

With acknowledgement to the Business Day.