THE appointment of Menzi Simelane as national director of public prosecutions is not surprising, given the inauspicious circumstances under which President Jacob Zuma assumed office.

To appoint somebody whom the government-appointed Ginwala Commission made very serious and damning credibility findings about is definitely rewarding him for a bad job well done - the Scorpions have been dissolved and Vusi Pikoli has been got rid of.

It is also the height of cynicism to settle a court case with Pikoli concerning his retention or otherwise of the same job and hardly five days later to offer that job to his staunchest critic with regard to the nature, content and scope of the duties and functions of the incumbent and what the reporting lines should be.

A longer-term view of Zuma's decision to appoint Simelane must also not be forgotten. To ensure that the dropped charges against the president are never revived, he definitely needs a dependable cadre as a NDPP.

We must brace ourselves for an unprecedented wave of politically motivated criminal prosecutions of those vulnerable and unconnected under the cloak of fighting crime and corruption in order to take focus away from the obscene loss and lack of ethics and morality in our social and political lives.

The day is not far away when all South Africans, including those in the ruling party, will regret the prostitution of our public institutions for party political gain and the protection of one soiled individual.

Moses Matsimbi, Garsfontein