Reverend Frank Chikane is one of the frontrunners for the position of the Inspector-General of Intelligence after MPs whittled down the list of candidates vying for the top job.
Former head of the domestic branch of the State Security Agency, advocate Sam Muofhe. is also in the running for the position.
Current Inspector-General of Intelligence Setlhomamaru Dintwe is also part of the 12 candidates that the joint standing committee on intelligence will have to choose from.
Chairperson of the joint standing committee Jerome Maake said members of the public have until January 12 next year to submit their comments on the shortlisted candidates.
However, Maake said the closing date for the position of the inspector-general was the end of September.
The committee had to shortlist the candidates and the remaining 12 candidates would be subjected to further processes of picking the right candidate for the position.
Dintwe was appointed inspector-general in March 2017 for a period of five years.
His term is coming to an end early next year and the committee will have to find another candidate before the end of his term in March.
The office of the inspector-general plays an oversight in intelligence structures in the country.
The intelligence community has been accused of security lapses during the July unrest and in other matters in the country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has absorbed the State Security Agency into the Presidency after he scrapped the Ministry of SSA.
The Deputy Minister of SSA, Zizi Kodwa, is now located in the Presidency.
Ramaphosa also appointed a panel after the July unrest to look at the security lapses during the looting and violence in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal.
The panel is chaired by Professor Sandy Africa. Other members include former legal adviser to ex-president Thabo Mbeki, advocate Mojanku Gumbi, and former spy Silumko Sokupa.
The panel has not yet handed its report into the security lapses in July.
But Deputy President David Mabuza told Parliament recently that the panel would complete its work soon and table the report.
POLITICAL BUREAU