South Africa Scorpions in Political Row

Managing security sure can be a tricky business. What happens when you have to investigate in places that are sensitive or politically tricky? There is no perfect answer. Consider the situation of a South African group called the Scorpions that was created in 1999 and charged with fighting organized crime and corruption:

Earlier this month, a court provisionally charged the former police chief with corruption, accepting bribes worth 1.2m rand ($160,000, £80,000) and defeating the course of justice, after investigations by the Scorpions.

Two problems jump out here:

  1. The group is relatively new, so their political support base will not be strong. People may not even know how much strength or legitimacy they have in their message
  2. They are old enough to be past their “honeymoon” period and on their own in terms of building credibility and independence

Combine those two and you end up with a tricky situation, especially when they are going after a former police chief.

South Africa’s security minister has tabled a proposal in parliament calling for the FBI-style Scorpions special investigations unit to be disbanded.

This row over the right level of independence needed for security investigations will be an interesting one to watch.

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