Chairperson, from the outset the DSO had been envisaged as a specialised unit to be independent of SAPS, and certainly not to replace it.
Now there has also been a Constitutional Court ruling that the term "single police" does not mean one police service. Furthermore, the Khampepe Commission found that the DSO should remain in the NPA. Given the international precedent for the DSO, as well as its impressive list of achievements, one wonders why the question to disband the DSO even arises.
Indeed, hon Carrim agreed with me that had the relevant Ministers for Justice and Constitutional Development and of Safety and Security, now safely ensconced elsewhere, actually done their jobs, we would never have had to go through the past 11-month debacle.
The DA said shutting down the DSO would drive the bulk of their specialists into the private sector, which it has and that we, as a country, would be collectively worse off for having lost the DSO without SAPS succeeding in improving its skills base. Indeed, we are about to do that.
Much has been made of intelligence gathering by the DSO and the process of their investigations, as though it were a crime but, of course, in terms of section 179(2) of the Constitution provision is made for an intelligence- gathering function for the DSO.
Is the solution for the executive's manifest failure ...