Cape Town ­ In an ironic twist to the public hearings around the scrapping of the Scorpions, Mo Shaik, brother of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik, yesterday gave lengthy testimony as to why the unit should go.

Schabir Shaik was the financial adviser to African National Congress (ANC) president Jacob Zuma, and was convicted of fraud and corruption after being investigated by the Scorpions. Judge Hilary Squires sentenced Shaik to 15 years in prison.

Mo Shaik began his representations by saying he needed to make it clear that he was not representing any member of his family. He said he was making a submission on the basis of the role he had played in the development of the country's security services. He served as deputy intelligence co-ordinator with the National Intelligence Co- ordinating Committee before a stint as ambassador to Algeria.

He said those who lamented the imminent dissolution of the Scorpions "are blinded to the shortcomings of the unit and the role they have played in entrenching patronage. Not only have they fallen short of dispensing justice, they have been given the freedom to act as intelligence gatherers without the responsibility of having to account to oversight structures".

"This is a shortcoming of the legislation that created the unit, but has irreparably tarnished the unit's reputation. Locating a new investigative unit in the South African Police Service is the best solution to overcome these problems and avoid them in the future," Shaik said.

He insisted that the Scorpions had abused their power in a political way and that those opposed to the dissolution "say that it was taken to protect powerful ANC politicians from current and future investigations by the DSO (the Directorate of Special Operations, or Scorpions). They also argue that to keep the ANC from exercising unbridled power, the DSO must be left alone. Strangely, they remain silent on the exercise of unbridled power by the DSO in the pursuit of patronage ."

Shaik said the National Prosecuting Authority Act combined the powerful functions of prosecution, investigation and information gathering in one entity, and the problem was that this was done without constitutional checks and balances. The act was unconstitutional, he said.

In response, African Christian Democratic Party MP Steve Swart said that the National Prosecuting Authority and the Scorpions appeared before Parliament's justice committee twice a year to account for their performance, thus there was considerable oversight and the Scorpions were accountable to Parliament.

Shaik was also told that the Khampepe commission and the Constitutional Court had found the Scorpions to be constitutionally sound.

The deliberations of the three parliamentary committees dealing with the two bills that will scrap the Scorpions and create a new Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation continue today.

With acknowledgements to Wyndham Hartley and Business Day.