"But hasn't it all become a giant farce?" a colleague asked me, referring to the Hefer Commission and to this week's events there.

In one way my colleague's question was accurate. This week's cross examination of Mac Maharaj, former transport minister and struggle stalwart, and the evidence and cross examination of Mo Shaik, former commander of an underground ANC intelligence unit, were full of farcical moments, apparent temper tantrums and sarcastic exchanges.

In addition, the presentation of the so-called spy report - the investigation carried out by Shaik's Mandla Judson Kuzwayo intelligence unit into Bulelani Ngcuka, the national director of public prosecutions, in the late 1980s, and then "reconstructed" two years ago by Shaik to become the basis for claims that Ngcuka was an agent of the apartheid regime - was not without its strange moments.

But, in another sense, my colleague was wrong. Despite the bizarre exchanges and histrionics, this week some important and serious issues were thrust into the public arena.

First, some of the events that underlay and precipitated the appointment of the commission by President Thabo Mbeki on September 19, and which have circulated on the gossip circuit, have been put on record.

Maharaj told the commission he had indeed gone to see Mbeki about Ngcuka. He went to see him on August 23, the Saturday on which Ngcuka and justice minister Penuell Maduna announced at a press conference that there was a prima facie case of corruption against Deputy President Jacob Zuma but that he would not be charged.

Maharaj saw him before the press conference. He said he consulted the president about the spy report and to discuss his unhappiness over what he calls Ngcuka's abuse of power.

He also claimed to have told Mbeki that he knew what the content of the press conference was going to be (prima facie case, but no charges) before it took place and to have cited this as another example of Ngcuka's "smear" approach.

Maharaj said nothing else about this meeting, other than that the president had asked: "How are we to handle this?"

Maharaj's evidence raises at least two questions. Why did the president not know - or is it at all credible that he did not know - how Ngcuka and Maduna were going to deal with the Zuma case?

Second, why did the president, having spoken to Maharaj, a former cabinet minister who had come to him with serious allegations, appoint the commission three weeks later?

Presumably the president was affronted by Maharaj "having gone public" via the City Press article (passed on to that newspaper by its writer, former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy).

The Weekend Argus has also been told by a reputable source that the impetus for the appointment of the commission came in fact from Ngcuka who wanted Maharaj to be "sorted out" once and for all.

It was also said by Shaik, during cross examination, that he went public with the allegations about Ngcuka "in order to defend the honour of the deputy president".

Earlier Shaik, a former consul general to Algeria, said he had been attending a South African reception for the Algerian president in 2001when he was pulled aside by Maduna and asked if it was true that his unit had once investigated Ngcuka.

Shaik said he consulted Zuma, former commander of ANC intelligence, about what he should do.

Zuma told him to divulge nothing and not to hand any documents over to Maduna or anyone else.

This evidence appears to confirm what political commentators have been suggesting for a while: that there is a serious split or splits in the ANC leadership, with certain forces ranging themselves behind Zuma and others behind Mbeki whom, it is claimed, does not wish to have Zuma in the position of his heir apparent when he steps down after his next term.

It also - along with Shaik's evidence that he has been running his own intelligence data base - feeds dangerous rumours that are doing the rounds and that suggest "a parallel force" consisting of Zuma supporters and opposed to Mbeki, is establishing itself.

It is said to be drawn mainly from the ranks of Operation Vula, the operation launched by the ANC in the late 1980s and commanded on the ground by Maharaj, and which included Zuma and Shaik.

Also flowing from the proceedings is that the National Prosecution Authority Act, in terms of which Ngcuka and his investigative directorates operate, and which Maharaj helped draft, has turned into a proverbial Frankenstein's monster for Maharaj and others.

It seems they never foresaw that it might one day use its wide-ranging powers against them. Indeed, the root of Maharaj's indignation - judging from his evidence - is that the National Directorate of Public Prosecutions (NDPP) has had the temerity to investigate struggle heroes and to make aspects of these investigations public.

On the other side of the coin, Maharaj's list of alleged leaks from the Scorpions to the media, especially what Maharaj claims was said about him at an off-the-record briefing by Ngcuka to editors, does raise the question of who, if anyone, is responsible for policing the behaviour of the NDPP. "Who is to guard the guardians themselves?" as a Roman writer once asked.

In terms of the act, Ngcuka may have been within his powers to brief editors, but it was hardly a fair or wise thing to have done. One recalls Judge Willem Heath, former head of the Heath Special Investigating Unit, who at the end of the day fell from grace because he did too much briefing of the media.

None of these issues is at all farcical, especially not the suggestion that Zuma may have played some sort of role in what is often referred to as the Mac and Mo show.

With acknowledgements to Jeremy Gordin and the Sunday Argus.