The IFP has rejected the recommendation by the ANC majority in parliament to appoint Robert McBride as the new head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID).
“We reject McBride’s appointment because not only will public perception of the police be further tainted, but now McBride will be given the power to investigate the very people who investigated him for his drunken driving case. The police do not trust nor respect McBride and because he will be the head of IPID, the validity of the cases he investigates will be challenged” said MP VB Ndlovu, IFP spokesperson on Police.
Mcbride was fired as Erkhuruleni police chief in 2008 and his appointment does not bode well for the security cluster as this is payback by the ANC.
Ndlovu also stated that “McBride’s qualifications are not much of an issue, but his lack of any legal background, while he has to deal with people who know the law, will compromise him. All his predecessors had some knowledge and experience in the practice of law and we needed someone with a basic understanding to be appointed.
The police will end up investigating him instead of him investigating the police. The minister should mark my words: no case that McBride investigates will stand. The minister should also count how many IPID cases will be successful in any court of law after McBride takes over”
Mcbride is known as the Magoos Bomber: On 14 June 1986 three people died and sixty-nine were injured in a bomb explosion in Magoo’s Bar on the Durban beachfront. An ANC’s armed wing, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) cell, led by Robert McBride, planted a bomb in a car outside the popular “Why Not Magoo’s Bar”, in the belief that the popular student bar was frequented by security branch police. There was a campaign at that time by MK members to attack police stations and places frequented by police. McBride was caught and convicted, and later granted both a reprieve from death row, and amnesty by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
