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The former executive director of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid), Robert McBride, is fighting tooth and nail to keep his position.
This as government has forged ahead with plans to proceed without him by appointing a caretaker to head the organisation.
On Friday, a day after McBride’s five-year contract came to an end, Police Minister Bheki Cele named Ipid’s chief financial officer, Victor Senna, as the organisation’s acting head for three months.
Speaking to City Press on Friday, McBride’s lawyer, Jac Marais, said his client led an oversight body, “and it was to be expected that it will not always be popular with everyone, especially those who the body is investigating”.
He went on to argue that Parliament, through the portfolio committee on police, had failed in its obligation to protect Ipid – and especially its now former head, McBride – from what he described as “unwarranted attacks”.
It emerged at the beginning of the year that McBride’s office was investigating the syphoning of about R45 million from the SA Police Service to allegedly finance an ANC campaign before its Nasrec conference last year.
In an urgent application filed at the Pretoria High Court this week, McBride challenged the administrative decision taken by the police portfolio committee not to renew his contract.
He described MPs, particularly those from the ANC who formed part of the committee’s deliberation process on whether to retain him or not, as “biased and politically influenced”.
In his court papers, McBride quotes ANC MP Livhuhani Mabija as having said: “The fact that he started running around saying: ‘Hey this-and-this, my contract must be renewed’, means he knows that he is not fit to go on in that position.”
Mabija told the portfolio committee that “McBride should be disciplined by the party to which he belongs for causing Parliament to waste money on the [deliberation] meeting”.
In the same meeting, ANC MP Martha Mmola is quoted as having said: “If I was a minister, I would not give him reasons because the contract is going to expire. I would have said: ‘Your contract expires on February 28, thanks.’”
The court papers also quote DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard as having said, while “on a radio show”, that “ANC MPs on the committee were planning to get rid of McBride because he is doing a great job”.
McBride goes on to argue in his papers that even the committee’s chairperson, Francois Beukman, made extraordinary allegations and adopted a harsh tone in his challenging affidavit.
He submits that because of the way these deliberations took place, he feels that the decision taken by the committee was unlawful, biased and politically influenced.
The Helen Suzman Foundation, which joined the application as an amicus curiae (a friend of the court), echoed McBride’s allegation that the decision taken by the portfolio committee was “unlawful” and went on to describe it as being unconstitutional.
The foundation’s director, Francis Antoni, told City Press that they had reached this conclusion based on recent judgments by the Constitutional Court, which found on various occasions that a political actor should not play a part in the appointment of the head of an independent body.
The police portfolio committee and Cele, in his submissions to the committee, argue that the decision not to renew McBride’s contract was based purely on the former Ipid boss’ conduct, which has been reported to the Public Protector and the Public Service Commission.
Among the complaints submitted are that McBride:
. Paid himself R100 000 for unused leave credits for the year 2015/16;
. Allegedly paid himself an allowance for the period he was on suspension without the minister’s approval;
. Allegedly granted himself a salary progression without following the Performance Management Policy and without conducting a performance assessment;
. Irregularly approved the salary progression of some members of Ipid without following Ipid regulations; and
. Allegedly made irregular appointments without advertising the positions.
The day after McBride’s contract ended, former acting police commissioner Khomotso Phahlane and the police’s supply chain management head, Ravichandran Pillay, were arrested.
Phahlane said the arrest was part of a plan by the former Ipid boss to get his job back.
