Glynnis Breytenbach: How Scorpions 2.0 can go after the ANC’s big looters…

Ninety-seven (97) African National Congress (ANC) bigwigs identified as looters by the Zondo Commission still have to be successfully prosecuted.  The Democratic Alliance (DA) wants an Anti-Corruption Commission (a Scorpions 2.0) to do so. The African National Congress (ANC) wants the Independent Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) to do it. In this interview with BizNews, Glynnis Breytenbach, the DA’s Shadow Minister of Justice, dissects the differences between the two. She explains that the Investigative Directorate (ID), even when it's made permanent within the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), is only as independent as the NPA. “And I speak from my own experience, but we've all seen that the National Prosecuting Authority at times is not independent, and it can be interfered with. And we've seen how the Scorpions was closed down. There's no security of tenure.”  The Anti-Corruption Commission, on the other hand, would be an “elite crime-fighting unit that has all of the resources that it requires”; and be a Chapter 9 institution  - independent of the NPA - that can only be disbanded by a two-thirds majority in Parliament. However, she stresses that The Anti-Corruption Commission is not intended to be competition for the NPA. “They will run parallel to it and they will have overlapping areas of jurisdiction…the Anti-Corruption Commission will deal with the very top echelon of cases of corruption, the very top echelon of cases of organised crime, and that should free the National Prosecuting Authority up quite considerably to prosecute the thousands of other matters that it's forced to deal with every day.” - Chris Steyn