Cele must give truthful reasons for not renewing McBride’s contract

22 February 2019

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has noted reports outlining Police Minister Bheki Cele's seeming rationale for his desire not to renew the contract of IPID Executive Director, Robert McBride, for another five years.

While Police Portfolio Committee members received the Minister's submission only this morning, as well as McBride's response to the submission, the DA finds the reasoning as reported to be shaky.

The central consideration that must occupy the minds of Committee members from today until the conclusion of this matter is the substantive fitness-for-purpose and eligibility of Robert McBride to continue in the office of IPID Executive Director.

Such a consideration hinges on two key questions:

- Has McBride been found conclusively guilty of any misconduct or incompetence that would be egregious enough to warrant removal from office and thus, by extension, would disqualify him from contract renewal?

- Has McBride's performance as Executive Director and/or that of the IPID under his leadership been so chronically deficient that he is clearly unfit for that office?

We are not convinced that either of these questions can be answered in the affirmative. While we acknowledge that there have been allegations leveled against McBride, these allegations are as yet untested and unproven.

Would Minister Cele have taken the same line of reasoning to motivate for removal from office when Minister Pravin Gordhan was the target of the Hawks-led witch-hunt in 2016 relating to allegations of his involvement in the so-called SARS "rogue unit"?

Similarly, there are no grounds to argue for chronic under-performance in IPID under McBride. If anything, many indicators have shown improvement since 2014 when the department was in organisational sclerosis to now being stable, more compliant and having largely eliminated underspending patterns.

The IPID under McBride's leadership has made significant investigative breakthroughs in detecting systemic corruption and procurement irregularities in the South African Police Service (SAPS) through the National Specialised Investigations Team (NSIT).

From exposing the alleged corrupt links between former Acting National Police Commissioner Khomotso Phahlane and certain SAPS contractors, to lifting the lid off attempts to plunder Crime Intelligence funds for partisan political ends in the ANC, we cannot afford any disruption of the IPID's work.

Minister Cele has his work cut out to persuade the Committee of his position, which will require cogent and substantive reasons. What we've heard so far is flimsy and opaque. He's going to have to do better than that.

Issued by Zakhele Mbhele, DA Shadow Minister of Police, 22 February 2019