Hawks head confident staff shortage challenges will not hinder investigations

The Directorate for Priority Crime (Hawks) is investigating more than 20 000 cases, of which more than 2 500 are cases of corruption.

The Directorate for Priority Crime (Hawks) is investigating more than 20 000 cases, of which more than 2 500 are cases of corruption.

Published Oct 4, 2021

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DURBAN: The Directorate for Priority Crime (Hawks) is investigating more than 20 000 cases of which more than 2 500 are of corruption.

Hawks head General Godfrey Lebeya said that although they had limited resources, he was confident they could solve most of the cases.

Speaking to 702's Bongani Bingwa, Lebeya said Hawks officials were trained and understood what was expected of them.

"The public should rest assure that we are doing what is expected of us. There are already more than 13 000 accused sitting in court and those are the matters that have been investigated.

“There are several convictions that have been secured and in all our convictions, we never go below 80%. The matters may take longer than what is expected. The majority of the cases are in the serious commercial space, with some people involved in serious organised crime."

He said that in some of the more complicated cases, there were instances where matters took more time to get through.

"You will find in the eThekwini Municipality DSW tender case, there are 2 786 charges. Meaning in one matter, you have about 3 000 cases in one. This is the nature of the complicated investigations that we are dealing with. We need to increase the number of investigators and we are working on that," Lebeya said.

Lebeya said the process investigators had to follow with each allegation in each case also took time.

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