Madam Deputy Speaker, comrades, friends and Deputy President - congratulations on your appointment - beyond all the bluster and political posturing, let us be clear. The vast majority of us in the ANC are not triumphalist. We are not gloating about the dissolution of the Scorpions. This is in fact a sad occasion, for what was meant to be an elite, efficient and powerful organised crime-fighting unit - the pride of the nation - has become a source of division in the nation. We will forever disagree on who is responsible for what in this saga and how we have come to this. But we have, and we cannot continue like this. We have to move on; we must. We have learnt our lessons, let us heed them.
Let us be clear. None of us in the ANC says the new organised crime- fighting model is perfect. But enough of us say this unit is workable. Give it a chance. Let it develop. This is work in progress. We have not been too prescriptive. We have provided the basic features of the new model. We can improve on it. It will have to be considered further in at least three contexts: the finalisation of the proposed new integrated criminal justice system; the pending overhaul of the South African Police Service Act as a whole; and a report from the Minister of Safety and Security to Parliament within three years on the performance of this new unit and the need for any legislative amendments. In any case, the nature, scope and methods of organised crime change constantly. So, obviously we will regularly have to review our organised crime-fighting unit and its methods.
It's not as if we must stress that we came to this new model lightly. We didn't just blindly and hurriedly implement the Polokwane resolution. Parliament is not some subcommittee of the ANC. [Interjections.] Let's agree to disagree. We refuse to abandon our legislative role. We had extensive public hearings. We spent some 190 hours on the Bill in formal meetings of the committee and the subcommittee and at least another 100 hours in informal exchanges with key stakeholders. We unanimously, as my comrade co-chair Maggie Sotyu said, rejected the weak and limp South African Police Service Bill that the executive offered us, and we rewrote it to ensure a more effective and organised crime-fighting unit.
We tried to find three balances. Firstly, we tried to find a balance between providing a firm framework for the new unit and not being too prescriptive. Secondly, we tried to balance the unit between being independent and being a part of the SAPS in a way that avoids replicating tensions between the DSO and the SAPS. Thirdly, we tried to find a way of both recognizing the specialty of organised crime and ensuring that it is located as part of our fight against crime as a whole. These balances, we insist, are right for now, given the specific circumstances we are in. But what's there to stop us from altering the balance, if we have to?
Again, based on the DSO experience, to avoid the new unit being political biased, we provided for an independent complaints mechanism for now. But, we can't just focus on the new unit without considering the SAPS as a whole. So, in our report we suggested to Parliament that the ICD be strengthened or a new mechanism be created to attend to all forms of complaints about the SAPS generally when the South African Police Service Act is overhauled.
In response to the many points I have made, an election is coming up. We understand that people have to grandstand politically, and I am doing that too. But there are limits to which you can do that. Let me start with the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry. A significant number of the opposition members recognised that the Khampepe Commission, in its substantial proposal, is not workable. You have investigators answerable to the Minister of Safety and Security and prosecutors answerable to the NPA. We asked them in the committee to explain to us how that would work. There was a sullen, deafening silence. So, they themselves acknowledged that the Khampepe Commmission can't always work.
Secondly, there is no obligation in any democracy anywhere in the world for a commission report - even by a judge - to be accepted necessarily by the executive or by Parliament. Democracies all over the world allow for that.
Thirdly, there are 10 substantial improvements on the Bill that we set out in section 6(6) of our report that was published on Tuesday morning in the