Scorpions: the Homeopathic option

Fighting corruption with corruption
A further objection to maintaining the Scorpions as an independent agency centres on the premise that somehow they are "Corrupt".

In a country where corruption is rapidly becoming a way of life [ as if it wasn't already pretty well established before the present era] isn't the idea of fighting a disease with elements of a disease, as in vaccinations, not similar to the idea of fighting corruption with corruption...I think we've established pretty well that corruption is like HIV AIDS ...Once you've got it it's incurable and the most useful way of handling it is through palliatives.So one can use thieves to catch thieves...Its not a particularly "nice" idea...it is however practical.

In a society that has chosen to make one political party almost omnipotent for the present it is inevitable that political instruments are used for point scoring purposes to facilitate internal power struggles.

We still need to see the advantage to the greater society of having competing groups of investigative agencies available to keep some margin of propriety in what could otherwise be a rapidly degenerating environment characterised by the serious abuses of power with which we used to be familiar.

As to whether there is a conspiracy to remove the former deputy president and replace him with the wife of the former Scorpions head this speculation falls into to the category of a "falling out amongsts thieves" [and politicians] and like the scrappings amongst siblings or the family dogs scrapping over leftover bones should be left alone to work itself out.

The country will outlive this particular momentary concern [with the doings and the screwings of ANC political honchos} as it has endured through the ghastliness of the former regime.Corruption however will endure and only the rivalries between competing agencies with overlapping agendas has any chance of keeping the stables passably clear...and even with them it is probable that it will be a close run thing.

The suggestion that there should be some civilian oversight of this agency is perhaps the most useful to have come out of the present debate even given that the oversight appointees will in all probability be stooges representing the current "in" faction: rather like that stooge intitution we call parliament.

A final note here regarding the broad based mal-performance of the SAPS which has been sadly highlighted this past week with their general failure to protect the interests of various young children...It is even possible that hardly any personnel in the police actually like their jobs...few people, generally, seem to like their jobs... So the idea of taking an entity that seems to function, and blending it into an agency with difficulties would only give us a policing variation on Gresham's law, which those economists amongst you will remember states that"bad money drives out good". In other words like mixing bad wine and good wine the result is crappy wine. Similarly blending the Scorpions into the SAPS will simply give us more poorly implemiented policing where only those rich enough to afford private investigators can see a margin of justice.

Viva Scorpions, Viva Competition
NiK