Staff shortages force Hawks to outsource

THE Hawks are currently operating with almost half the personnel provided for in its organogram.

- MAYIBONGWE MAQHINA [e-mail]

The staff establishment stood at 2 688, including detectives and support staff when the entity is supposed to have 5 332 personnel.

This emerged when Hawks divisional commissioner Patrick Mbotho appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) yesterday.

“In this financial year 2025/26, the police management and we agreed that we are going to prioritise 500 posts. The 500 is to be made up of 300 posts to be advertised internally for us to source within police investigators, but the other 200 is reserved for external advertisements for those posts we don't have capacity internally, such as forensic accountants.”

He also said they were in the process of capacitating the cybersecurity environment.