Special treatment, big salaries and special benefits for members of the elite Scorpions unit are leading to disenchantment among rank and file police officers.
While ordinary policemen and women battle to carry out investigations effectively because they lack resources, the Scorpions have access to highly sophisticated investigative equipment.
Former officers who joined the Scorpions get almost double their police pay and have been assigned cars, while some police stations are so short of vehicles they cannot react to crime reports.
Growing numbers of experienced police officers are being lured away with offers of attractive working conditions and higher pay, leaving police detective units seriously understaffed.
The Scorpions also faced criticism recently over their lavish offices.
The unit operates from high-rental modern buildings while most police offices are run down and have basic old-fashioned furniture.
Some politicians see the growing tension between the Scorpions and rank and file police as symptoms of a power struggle for control of the elite unit between justice minister Penuell Maduna and safety and security minister Steve Tshwete.
Police in the Western Cape were not prepared to talk about the situation, but earlier in the week senior police officers confirmed that detectives were unhappy about indications that the Scorpions would take over high-profile cases in the province.
Said one officer: "We won't allow them to take the juicy cases and leave us with the dregs. If they want to take the big cases, let them take the minor cases too."
Scorpions combine prosecutors, police and investigators in a single unit which has operated, up to now, as a special unit in the national prosecuting authority, headed by Bulelani Ngcuka in the justice department.
But all political parties agree that the draft law, the Directorate of Special Operations Bill to formally establish the Scorpions, does not say who will be in ultimate operational control.
The parliamentary portfolio committee on justice sent the draft legislation back to the drawing board last month. It comes up again in the committee this week.