Johannesburg — PRESIDENT Thabo Mbeki is likely to face sharp criticism this week over the dissolution of the Scorpions when he finally releases the Khampepe report on the unit today.

The report, which Mbeki has kept under wraps for more than two years, is being released just five days after the cabinet approved the National Prosecuting Amendment and General Law Amendment bills, legislation that could eventually allow the Scorpions to be disbanded.

Judge Sisi Khampepe's 144-page findings broadly endorse the Scorpions, despite being critical of the way in which they conducted their investigations.

Though Khampepe found the location of the Scorpions was constitutionally and jurisprudentially sound, she had called on the body to stop publicising its investigations, ensure vetting of its investigators and stop gathering intelligence.

The report also apparently points out that the relationship between the Scorpions and the police was nonexistent and called on Mbeki to reprimand then National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) head Vusi Pikoli and former national police commissioner Jackie Selebi.

In her report, Khampepe lambasts Mbeki for not taking "corrective action through appropriate admonition".

Khampepe's findings are being released in the same week that the commission of inquiry headed by Frene Ginwala will hold hearings into whether Pikoli was fit to hold office.

Pikoli's lawyers are expected to put forward a case that he was axed last year over his failure to seek political approval before the NPA sought an arrest warrant for Selebi.

After Pikoli's suspension last year, an internal review process in the NPA found that there was sufficient evidence to charge Selebi. The former police commissioner is now facing charges of corruption and racketeering, while Pikoli is demanding that he be reinstated.

While it remains unclear why Mbeki has decided to release the Khampepe report, it will no doubt spur on opposition political parties who have come out against the African National Congress's push for the Scorpions to be disbanded.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) is today expected to again ask the speaker of Parliament to suspend the process to disband the Scorpions . DA chief whip Ian Davidson said yesterday that given the findings of the Khampepe report and pending the outcome of a legal challenge by businessman Hugh Glenister against the scrapping of the Scorpions, he would again ask speaker Baleka Mbete to stop the process.

The pressure has been on the Scorpions since the ANC resolved at its national congress in December to integrate the unit into the South African Police Service.

The decision was made amid allegations that the Scorpions were being used to settle political scores .