Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s hopes of getting an early Christmas gift — an inquiry that would allow him to suspend Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) executive director Robert McBride — fizzled when Parliament’s portfolio committee on police failed to deliver. The committee resolved on Wednesday only to take note of National Assembly speaker Baleka Mbete’s referral of Nhleko’s request for an inquiry into McBride’s fitness for office. Nhleko told the committee that an inquiry would be in the interests of justice, and denied that he was anxious to use a parliamentary process to remove McBride. The committee resolved that section 17D of the South African Police Service Act could only be used as an instrument to remove the Ipid head if it was done with the concurrence of the National Assembly. Nhleko sidestepped a series of hard questions about controversial figures heading up his department’s agencies. They include McBride, Hawks head Berning Ntlemeza and acting nati...
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