The future of the Scorpions - South Africa's renowned corruption-busters - is under the spotlight.

This was strongly hinted at by President Thabo Mbeki yesterday when he spoke about the "institutional tensions" between the Scorpions and the SA Police Service.

Mbeki said one option would be for the Scorpions to become a specialised police unit. The president, however, ruled out the dissolution of the Scorpions.

"It's a question of the location of the Scorpions," he said. "You can't have two police services at the national level."

Mbeki said he had held several meetings with Police Commissioner Jackie Selebi and National Director of Public Prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka on this topic.

He said he was sometimes surprised at investigations undertaken by the Scorpions, which he felt should have been done by the police.

The Scorpions unit was set up with a high level of expertise to do specialised probes - not general police investigations. Mbeki, however, stressed that the need for the Scorpions continued.

Institute for Security Studies senior researcher Henri Boshoff said incorporating the Scorpions into the police would not necessarily be a bad move.

"For one, the command and control of these two units would become much easier," he said, but he warned that the government should be very careful in doing so.

"It could be very dangerous to just break it down and incorporate it into the police because then you might get a situation where that tension could be brought over into the SAPS."

Mark Welman, of the MTN Centre for Crime Prevention at Rhodes University, said incorporating the Scorpions into the SAPS would not solve the tension.

"The Scorpions do very good work ... A solution to look at could be a process of mediation between the two and to remind both groups that they are playing to the same key," he said.

With acknowledgements to John Battersby, Lee Rondganger, Sapa and The Star.