How much havoc will we allow Nhleko to wreak before Parliament calls for his head?
24 march 2015
The suspension of the Executive Director of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID), Robert McBride, by the Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, is a desperate last-ditch attempt to throw the scent off himself and his gross misconduct in his handling of the Hawks debacle.
This comes after the Police Minister's spokesperson confirmed this afternoon that he had suspended the IPID Head. The Minister has now gone too far. His desperation to absolve himself from his clearly unlawful conduct by violating the November Constitutional Court ruling that he effectively did not have the right to fire or replace the Head of the Hawks is set to cost McBride his job.
In fact, just last week the North Gauteng High Court turned down an urgent interdict by McBride prohibiting the Minister from suspending him. McBride aruged that this was because it would leave IPID leaderless and prone to undue political influence as Minister Nhleko has proven himself an expert.
Minister Nhleko alleged, earlier this month, that McBride doctored the IPID's report into the illegal renditions of Zimbabweans in 2010 to shield the Hawks boss from any involvement in wrongdoing. Still weeks after he made these utterances he has not presented an iota of prima facie evidence to support this serious claim. He has instead suspended McBride because the report on which he claims to have based the purge at the Directorate of Priority Crime Investigations (The Hawks) was not to his liking.
When the North Gauteng High Court ruled yesterday that the Acting Head of the Hawks Berning Ntlemeza was "biased, dishonest and lacking in integrity and honour" he added that the suspension of Gauteng Hawks Boss Shadrack Sibiya was done "without a shred of evidence". If the Minister or the unlawful Acting Head of the Hawks had evidence then, they would have presented it.
The Minister has, once again, in suspending McBride acted completely in bad faith and has left yet another critical crime fighting institution leaderless in the sole effort to discharge his insidious political agenda.
Parliament's silence in this regard cannot continue and the Police Committee must recommend the one-man-wrecking-ball Minister be fired if President Jacob Zuma lacks the political will to do so himself.
Statement issued by Dianne Kohler Barnard MP, DA Shadow Minister of Police, March 25 2015
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
