The ANC top brass, in an effort to make sure the Scorpions are disbanded, in
line with resolutions passed at the party's Polokwane conference, is mustering
opponents of the elite crime-fighting unit, determined that they will hold sway
at parliamentary public hearings on the Scorpions' future.
The Sunday Independent understands that the ANC's national executive committee
(NEC) will debate the plan for a rallying of anti-Scorpions forces on Sunday.
The NEC meeting will also finalise the issue of its second most powerful leader,
Kgalema Motlanthe, the party deputy president, joining the government. The ANC's
national working committee - the party's equivalent to the cabinet - recently
instructed Jacob Zuma, the party's president, to tell President Thabo Mbeki that
Motlanthe should be "deployed" to the executive.
It is expected that Motlanthe will be given one of three vacant seats in
parliament in the next two weeks to give him legislative experience and prepare
him for higher office.
At a recent meeting of the party's national working committee it was agreed that
the ANC would make sure that people sympathetic to the party's resolution to
chop the Scorpions would dominate the parliamentary public hearings.
A list of "sympathetic" individuals is to be compiled and the names on it sent
to Gwede Mantashe, the party's secretary-general.
"The [working committee] agreed that, for the purpose of public hearings, it
would be necessary to assemble a group of people who are sympathetic to our
cause and understand the basis of the Polokwane resolution on the [Scorpions].
In the meantime, we need to make sure that our communication on the matter is
clear and the reasons for the Polokwane resolution are clearly explained," says
the report.
The move by the ANC is likely to further fuel critics' perceptions that
the dissolution of the Scorpions is politically motivated.
The Scorpions are despised and feared by many in the ANC
*1 because they are regarded as a political tool used to discredit
leaders, most notably Zuma.
A number of members of the executive committee - including Tony Yengeni, the
former chief whip, and Ngoako Ramathlodi, the former Limpopo premier - have
been, or are being, investigated by the Scorpions.
The Polokwane conference, at which Zuma was elected president of the ANC,
resolved that the Scorpions be dissolved and incorporated into the police by
June this year. The government has already announced plans to merge the
Scorpions with the police's organised crime unit.
The ANC is keeping a hawk's eye on the two government departments - safety and
security, and justice - that deal with the Scorpions to ensure that the
Polokwane resolution is implemented to the letter.
The ministers responsible for the two departments report to the ANC head office
at Luthuli House about their progress in preparing legislation on the Scorpions
for parliament to consider. The legislation is to be tabled this month.
An ANC subcommittee in parliament has been appointed to ensure that the process
runs without any surprises for the ruling party.
Earlier this week, the ANC, backed by its alliance partners, Cosatu and the
South African Communist Party, lambasted the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA),
which nominally controls the Scorpions, for questioning the accuracy of a
parliamentary watchdog committee's report that fingered
Leonard McCarthy, the Scorpions boss, as the brains behind an "illegal"
intelligence document *2.
The multi-party joint standing committee on intelligence recommended that the
executive take action against McCarthy and other senior Scorpions for the
production and leaking of the Special Browse Mole Report.
At previous meetings of the national executive committee, it was agreed that
there should be a consistent media strategy for dealing with the NPA and the
fraud and corruption charges it is pursuing against Zuma.
* This article was originally published on page 2 of The Sunday Independent
on March 16, 2008
With acknowledgements to Sunday
Independent.
*1The Scorpions are despised and
feared by many in the ANC because many in the higher echelons of the ANC are
crooked and corrupt and criminal, notable Jacob Zuma, Tony Yengeni and Mac
Maharaj.
*2Another ass's arse, who, just like his ex boss Bulelani
Ngcuka, was too clever by half.