SOUTH African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday appointed Willie Hofmeyr, the deputy national director of public prosecutions, as the nation’s chief corruption buster, heading the Special Investigating Unit. He takes over from former Judge Willem Heath, who was excluded from a probe into alleged corruption surrounding a $5,5-million arms acquisition deal and who resigned from the bench in June, losing all his benefits, after being refused a discharge. Many of the agency’s staff also quit. The unit, created by Nelson Mandela in 1996 and which operated under a presidential mandate under Heath, will now fall under the control of the national directorate of public prosecutions.