Closing Scorpions 'dangerous'

2008-01-30 17:13

Pretoria - The African National Congress' drive to close the Scorpions is "myopic and dangerous", political analyst Professor Adam Habib said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the University of Pretoria's African Dialogue Lecture series, both Habib and fellow academic and analyst Professor Stephen Friedman said the move sent out the wrong signals.

"To close the Scorpions now sends a signal: we're settling scores," Habib said.

"The suggestion is, that if your first priority is getting rid of the Scorpions rather than trying to get rid of disease and poverty, well then maybe you're looking after yourself rather than at people who voted for you," Friedman said about the closure of the unit.

The ANC's National Executive Committee earlier this month "urgently resolved" that members of the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions) performing police functions be absorbed into the police by June this year.

The government was informed about this decision and then discussed it at the Cabinet Lekgotla.

"Government is going to take that (the ANC decision) into account and then prepare its plan about how that decision will be implemented," government spokesperson Themba Maseko said ahead of the Lekgotla.

Habib, however, was concerned about the rationale for the closure of the Scorpions, saying three major reasons were given by the ANC including political interference in the work of the unit.

"If that is true, that is not the only institution, and it seems to me to deal with the problem of the manipulation you don't close the institution down, because if you start closing institutions down because of that, you'll have to close half of the institutions of the South African state, you deal with the political interference," he said.

- SAPA