Parliament’s ad hoc committee investigation into alleged corruption and political interference in the police has given jaded South Africans the best soap opera since Isidingo.
On second thoughts, it’s less The Need and more Zero Tolerance, the spectacular 2004 TV drama about … challenges facing an elite South African crime-fighting unit.
Two decades on, what would the Zero Tolerance writers have done with the immense amount of material bubbling up in this long-running investigation into the failures at crime intelligence?
Some of the allegations being aired are standard clichéd cop drama fare: drug evidence missing from police labs (and, in a contemporary South African twist, rhino horn too). Jobs for (unqualified) pals. Black bin bags full of cash. Kidnappings. Ransoms. Torture. Witness tampering. Witness murder.
Police corruption is as old as the Romans
Some of it is fresh. A civilian go-between betwixt the cops and a forensic investigator, apparently with the pet name “Clippety Clip”.
Christmas braais by the swimming pool with people who really shouldn’t be braaiing together.
A white Hugo Boss shirt, allegedly belonging to a top cop, left in a penthouse belonging to a man awaiting trial on charges of attempted murder and money laundering, among others.
A suspended policeman responding to suggestions that he rolled out the red carpet for the same awaiting-trial individual, saying: “I don’t work with carpets, madam. Let’s correct.”
If the grilling by the committee members has been intemperate, they can hardly be faulted given the widespread allegations of corruption and the evasiveness of some of the witnesses.
Police corruption is as old as the Romans. It could be fatal, though, for this fragile democracy. If the drama playing out in parliament ever makes it to the screen, The Need would be a good name for it.
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