McBride in firing line again

Police Minister Nathi Nhleko will have to answer to the parliamentary portfolio committee on the police after becoming embroiled in yet another feud with the head of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate Robert McBride.

Nhleko is pushing for the committee to launch a new investigation into McBride's conduct, a move that some say is in violation of a Constitutional Court order.

The Constitutional Court ruled on September 6 that McBride's suspension was unlawful and gave parliament 30 days to begin an inquiry into his conduct. If it did not embark on an inquiry, he should then be allowed to return to work.

But Nhleko believes that parliament should institute a new inquiry, despite the deadline having passed.

Portfolio committee chairman Francois Beukman said the committee wanted clarification on investigations involving the police and the directorate.

Constitutional law expert Piet de Jager said that because parliament had not reinstated the disciplinary processes within the deadline, the lifting of McBride's suspension was final.

• The emergence at the weekend of an audio recording of an exchange between a Hawks officer and a man said to be a whistleblower suggests that McBride's troubles are not over.

In the recording, the officer tells the whistleblower that no one knows - except for two investigators, himself and Nhleko - that he is involved in an investigation into McBride's participation in an attempted murder case in 2007.