The government must think long and hard before it touches the Scorpions. Even if there are some good reasons for this crack unit to be incorporated into the SA Police Service, which I seriously doubt, any sign that the Scorpions' independence was undermined would further undermine the public perception that the government is not serious about crime and corruption.

An even more serious consequence could be the perception that the infighting and power struggles inside the ruling ANC are now influencing government decisions of national importance. Well, perhaps that perception is not far from the truth.

How many sober-minded South Africans are there outside the ANC caucus who would believe that the sudden "review" of the role of the Scorpions announced by, of all people, Public Service and Administration Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi, has nothing to do with the ANC's criticism that the Scorpions were playing dirty tricks against politicians?

How many thinking members of the public will believe that the plans to subject the Scorpions and their leader to the authority and discipline of Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi have nothing to do with the verbal assault on Scorpions head Bulelani Ngcuka after it became clear his unit was investigating allegations against Deputy President Jacob Zuma?

I desperately hope all the allegations against Zuma are untrue. He has done some really great things as deputy president.

But the way he has been handling the publicity which the investigation received and the way he is showing a middle finger to the Scorpions by delaying his responses, inevitably create the impression that he could be hiding something. And there can be little doubt that his irritation with the Scorpions is at least partly behind the mudslinging campaign against Ngcuka.

The Zuma affair has now reached a stage where any hint of a cover-up would be disaster - for Zuma himself, but also for the credibility of the government. We need to know the whole truth, and soon.

Government and the ANC are under-estimating how proud ordinary South Africans are of the Scorpions. We smile when we see the ritzy black cars with the Scorpions logo parked at some big crook's house and we think: the rapists and the murderers get away, but at least the fat cat criminals get caught every now and then.

Ordinary South Africans also don't find it difficult to understand that there could be natural tensions between the Scorpions and the SAPS. It is the theme of so many movies and TV series from America: the conflict of jurisdiction - and ego - between the FBI and the police.

We understand that the uniformed police and detectives can sometimes be jealous of the elite unit, and we understand that the elite unit can sometimes be a bit flashy and brag about their status. And we expect our elected government to manage this inevitable tension properly.

The perception of ordinary South Africans is that the Scorpions have special skills like top detectives, lawyers and accountants and that they have special powers because they concentrate on the more serious and sophisticated crimes.

We want them to have those extra skills, privileges and powers, because we don't want organised crime and big-time criminals to turn our country into a Russia or a Colombia.

In our eyes the SAPS and the Scorpions are not in competition. The SAPS are our local cops, the men and women we see in the neighbourhood, the people we call when there has been a burglary or a hijacking, the faces behind the counter in the charge office, the detectives who come and take fingerprints at the crime scene.

Most of us like our cops and we sympathise with the fact that they have to put their lives in danger. But all of us know that they are not really effective; that they are not winning the war against crime in our society. We got confirmation of that this week from advocate Ron Paschke who investigated 15 000 crimes and concluded: "Crime pays. Violent criminals get away with their crimes."

We fear that the Scorpions are going to become equally ineffective if they are forced into the massive bureaucracy of the SAPS.

President Thabo Mbeki is so far untouched by the dramas around the Scorpions and the Zuma affair. We saw him on television the other evening saying that for once in his life he did not have an opinion on a matter of national importance. It is a good thing that he has not been tainted directly in the squabbles.

But he also has to realise that we ordinary South Africans expect of him as the head of government to see to it that political power struggles do not affect the administration of our country.

We also remember that he is also the leader of the ANC and we wonder why he is not directly involved in solving the infighting in his party. We're also beginning to wonder if it wasn't time for the ANC to find a better party manager than Kgalema Motlanthe.

With acknowledgements to Max du Preez and The Star.