Former Chief Justice Raymond Zondo says he has little confidence in the Hawks and believes South Africa cannot win the fight against corruption without a capable and effective police force.
Zondo was speaking at the South African Council of Churches National Anti-Corruption conference in Johannesburg.
He warns that corruption has become so widespread that, in some respects, the country has regressed from where it was before democracy, 30 years ago.
Zondo criticises the disbanding of the elite crime-fighting unit, the Scorpions, saying it allowed criminality to flourish with devastating consequences for ordinary South Africans.
"In the early 2000s, we had the Scorpions, which were very effective in fighting corruption. Criminals had begun to fear them. But in the 2007 ANC elective conference, a resolution was taken to disband them. The results are there for all of us to see. A number of cases that were lodged with the Hawks by the Prasa board, as far as I know, in 2025, we have heard of no arrests."