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It is absolutely unacceptable that the Police Ministry has attempted to pull the wool over our eyes by falsely claiming that the Hawks have already made significant arrests. These claims were quite clearly part of an orchestrated public relations campaign over this past week - beginning with a glitzy launch party for the Hawks in Midrand, then culminating in a series of large full-colour newspaper adverts and three erroneous claims of early Hawks arrests.

The truth, as has been confirmed by several newspapers today, is that the Hawks do not exist as a crime fighting entity. In fact, their boss, Anwa Dramat, is their only employee. As such, they are not in a position to make any arrests - as is further verified by reports that the three sets of arrests last week were the consequence of routine investigations carried out by pre-existing police units.

Particularly outrageous is the national press statement issued on Thursday following arrests in Kuils River, which stated that "the newly established Hawks arrested a 45-year-old police inspector on charges of kidnapping, extortion and corruption". Given the details that have now emerged, it is difficult to see how this can be described as anything other than a barefaced lie.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will now submit parliamentary questions to establish:

why the Police claimed erroneously that arrests could be attributed to a unit that does not exist operationally;
who authorised the official statements that accompanied these arrests; and
how much has been spent by the Police Ministry on public advertisements for the Hawks, and why this money would not have been better spent on hiring new investigators.