By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) has lost its application for leave to appeal a court ruling that found it guilty of civil contempt for its failure to hand over all its cadre deployment records to the Democratic Alliance (DA).
The ANC said in its appeal application that it did not act in bad faith when it did not give the records to the official opposition.
This was after the DA complained that the ANC did not submit all the records between 2013 and 2018. This was at the time Cyril Ramaphosa was chairing the deployment committee.
The ANC has also said cadre deployment was not only practised in South Africa as this was done in most of the democratic states in the world.
In Friday’s judgment, the court found the ANC did not advance any new grounds that would suggest another court would come to a different conclusion that it has failed to comply fully with the order to hand over the documents.
The DA wants the full records to prove that the ANC’s patronage network led to State capture and corruption.
In February, the Constitutional Court gave the ANC five days to hand over its cadre deployment records dating back to 2013 when Ramaphosa chaired the committee.
This included all meeting minutes, CVs, emails and phone messages.
“Since our victory in the Constitutional Court which forced the ANC to release its cadre deployment records, we have uncovered a web of politically motivated appointments that have crippled service delivery and undermined the professionalism of the public service sector,” said DA spokesperson Willie Aucamp.
Aucamp said as a key player in the Government of National Unity the DA won’t shirk its responsibility to hold the ANC accountable for the sake of good governance and transparency.