Dear Editor,

The appointment of former senior Institute for Security Studies staffer, Gareth Newham, as special adviser to the Acting Minister of Police, Professor Firoz Cachalia, is of interest. They worked together on crime in Gauteng between 2006 and 2009. A veteran journalist with the Sunday Times, your sister publication, has interviewed Newham for the “So Many Questions” column ( https://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/2026-10-04-qa-with-gareth-newham-acting-police-minister-firoz-cachalias-special-adviser/#google_vignette).

It is noteworthy that Newham accepted his new position shortly before Professor Cachalia gave evidence to the ad hoc committee of the National Assembly, which is currently putting the final touches on its report concerning the complaints of police corruption made by KZN police chief Lt Gen N Mkhwanazi in July 2025, during his dramatic Durban media briefing.

The acting minister, while under questioning by the DA chief whip, had the good grace to concede that the ANC was mistaken in resolving to close down the successful anti-corruption unit within the NPA that was called the Scorpions, or officially, the Directorate of Special Operations. The Scorpions combined investigative and prosecutorial functions under one roof and proved themselves the come-uppance of the corrupt and those involved in organised crime. Their demise made state capture easier during the Zuma era and beyond.

Addressing that “mistake” must surely be a task facing Newham and his minister. Reincarnating the Scorpions as the IDAC in 2024 clearly hasn’t worked out well following the implosion of its leadership in the Madlanga Commission’s witness box.

Newham reported as an expert witness in the final Glenister case in which his opinions were relied on to argue that the Hawks, even as tweaked, would be no answer to the challenges posed to SA by organised crime and grand corruption. Today no one suggests that the Hawks suffice.

[In their defence: the Hawks can deal effectively with other “priority crimes” allocated to them; but they are not up to the tasks and challenges of seeing off organised crime and the corrupt. This weakness is principally due to their lack of structural and operational independence. They are a mere SAPS unit answerable to the ministry of police.]

In the Glenister litigation the Constitutional Court ordered parliament to create an adequately independent body in place of the inadequate Hawks. Instead, parliament tweaked the Hawks legislation, ineffectively so – as history reveals. The court’s reasoning that “our law demands a body outside executive control to deal effectively with corruption” has not yet received any proper response from parliament despite its binding nature.

The acting minister chaired the National Anti-Corruption Advisory Council which recommended in its final report in August 2025, the establishment of an Office of Public Integrity under Chapter Nine of the Constitution, thereby placing anti-corruption investigations outside executive control. It was not suggested the OPI receive any powers to prosecute which would defeat the court’s binding requirement that the new body exist outside executive control as a single body to deal with corruption. More than a year after the publication of its final report nothing has been done to implement NACAC’s recommendations, which are not of binding nature, unlike the court findings.

Meanwhile, and since November 2024, the “Breytenbach bills” languish in the parliamentary queue of new legislation. They envisage a constitutionally compliant solution in the form of a Chapter Nine Anti-Corruption body to prevent, combat, investigate and prosecute corruption and organised crime. Strangely, the NEC of the ANC called for the urgent establishment of just such a body in August 2020. The political will to do so has been lacking. https://accountabilitynow.org.za/paul-hoffman-has-anc-finally-had-its-eureka-moment-on-corruption/.

Yours in accountability,
Paul Hoffman SC