South Africa
Robert McBride the new head of SA foreign intelligence─── 06:33 Fri, 17 Jul 2020
Robert McBride has been appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa as the new head of South Africa's foreign intelligence service.
"The president approved the appointment in terms of section 8(1) of the Intelligence Services Act, 65 of 2002. Mr McBride has been appointed for a period of three years commencing from 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2023," the presidency said on Thursday.
McBride, an anti-apartheid Struggle veteran, served a tumultuous term as executive director of the Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) until 2019.
He was suspended from the position by then police minister Nathi Nhleko in 2015 amid intense political wrangling over attempts by the criminal justice system to probe the scandal over state spending on former president Jacob Zuma's private home in Nkandla.
McBride went to court and held on to his job, but last year Police Minister Bheki Cele blocked his reappointment for a second term.
News of his appointment to the head of the foreign branch of the State Security Agency (SSA) comes a day after MPs approved the minister's nomination of Jennifer Ntlatseng as the new director of Ipid.
State Security Minister Ayanda Dlodlo said McBride's appointment would help to bring stability to the SSA.
“The work to implement the recommendations of the High Level Panel on the State Security Agency is proceeding steadily and this appointment is one of the critical steps towards the journey to rebuild the agency,” she said.
"Minister Dlodlo welcomes Mr McBride to his new position and wishes him well for his tenure in the agency. She also expresses her sincere thanks to the president for filling this position, which has been vacant for about four years."
McBride has in the past served as chief of the metropolitan police for Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality and has headed up the ethics division in the Department of Public Service and Administration.
During the ANC's armed struggle against the apartheid regime, McBride was convicted and sentenced to death for bombing two beachfront bars in Durban in the 1980s but was released from prison in 1992, two years before South Africa's first democratic election.
African News Agency
