State capture: 5 important quotes from Robert McBride's testimony

Former Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) boss Robert McBride is testifying before the Zondo commission into state capture.

McBride has told the commission about attempts to weaken Ipid and the appointments of candidates to investigative roles who had no experience in the field.

These are five telling quotes from his testimony so far.

Political affiliation

"I have been all my life and still am a member of the ANC. But in the position of executive director of the Ipid, I had to exercise my tasks independently, without consideration of political affiliation."

Who holds Ipid accountable

"Strategically and administratively, it would be to the minister of police. In terms of accountability and expenditure of funds, oversight and accountability on how we have carried out our functions, it would be to parliament."

Unwillingness to co-operate

"Senior police ranks have been resisted, obstructed. There is willingness to co-operate with lower ranking police officers, but the moment it reaches a certain level, there is resistance."

Wrong candidates appointed

"In essence, people who were specialists in a particular field like CFO would be transferred to an investigations officer post in a certain province. A CFO has statutory powers and statutory obligations and in this instance has no investigative or criminal or police investigative capacity or training. Similarly, an advocate would be transferred to head another province for investigations. There are quite a number of them."

Efforts to weaken Ipid

"The provision of some standard operating procedures was abused to prematurely close cases or to bring them to finality, so it could appear that Ipid has gone through all these cases at rapid speed. Key investigations suddenly stagnated."