President Thabo Mbeki never ceases to amaze nowadays. The president's letter - written to the Hefer commission of inquiry this week - indeed leaves us amazed at his attitude to the commission.

The president has told the commission there would be no point in him appointing Judge Hefer to pursue information to which he already has access.

Mbeki was responding to the commission's request for assistance in gaining access to information from state security structures, which could enable it to execute its mandate.

Mbeki - speaking through his director-general Frank Chikane - has told the commission he has unfettered access to all information in the possession of the state intelligence and security structures on "sources and agents".

The president's response to the commission may have dealt the final blow to its work.

In simple terms, the president says he knows what he asked the commission to find out - whether national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka was an apartheid spy or not.

This begs the question: Why did Mbeki then appoint a commission to probe something he already knows as - by his own statement - he has access to intelligence files that may shed light on the matter?

If this is the case, we are then tempted to call on the president to disband the commission immediately. As he presumably already knows if Ngcuka was a spy or not, why can't he then share that information with the public? The commission now appears to be a waste of time and money.

Mbeki's remarkable statement to the commission was followed by his announcement that Justice Minister Penuell Maduna would no longer be investigated by the commission on similar allegations. This has increased the confusion of the commission, whose work no longer appears to be relevant at all.

It now appears Mbeki did not fully apply his mind when he appointed the Hefer commission. There are even suggestions that the appointment of the Hefer commission took some members of the cabinet by surprise.

We first suspected Mbeki might have blundered in appointing the commission when he wrote in his weekly ANC column that those who accused others of having been apartheid spies would face the full wrath "of the masses".

That statement basically pre-empted the commission even before it started its work. It suggested Mbeki denies there are people in his government who worked as apartheid spies. It indicated the appointment of this commission was ill-advised.

Could it then be argued that the president appointed the commission without consulting his cabinet? If so, who then advised the president to appoint it? If the cabinet was consulted, could cabinet members not have anticipated that government ministries are prohibited by law from disclosing classified information to an official government-appointed commission?

It became murkier still when Deputy President Jacob Zuma - who allegedly knew about the ANC investigation into Ngcuka - announced that he would not testify before the commission.

It was made even more unbearable when the commission sought to force journalists to testify when people who clearly might have information and documents refused to testify. The commission is not pursuing them in the same manner or with as much zeal as we - journalists - have been pursued.

The president now contends the allegations that form the basis for the commission's appointment relate to information held by people outside state security structures. In our knowledge, the only such people can be Mac Maharaj and Mo Shaik, as they first confirmed in public that there was at one stage an ANC-inspired investigation of Ngcuka.

We don't think there was any need to establish a commission to hear accusations from only two people. The president should have looked at better ways of dealing with this matter. The inter-ministerial cabinet committee, mooted earlier by Maduna, could have been a less costly exercise.

Unfortunately millions of taxpayers' money has gone into a futile exercise that's not even supported by the man who initiated it. It is our view the public was taken for granted with the appointment of this commission.

The government must come clean. We suggest Mbeki disbands the commission and announce whether Ngcuka was a spy or not.

But allegations that Ngcuka has abused his office still form part of the commission's mandate. They remain serious allegations, which makes it crucial that they still be investigated. An independent legal expert can then be appointed to investigate those allegations, as they do not warrant a full judicial commission of inquiry.

This is the only way that South African taxpayers can be saved a lot of unnecessary expenditure. It will also save the country from this circus of a so-called spy inquiry which, after all, is going to come to naught.

With acknowledgement to the City Press.