By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The African National Congress (ANC) handed over its cadre deployment records to the Democratic Alliance (DA) as ordered by the Constitutional Court.
DA Shadow Minister of Public Service and Administration Dr Leon Schreiber confirmed the party received the cadre deployment records and will now study the records to ascertain whether the ANC has complied with the court order in full.
The ANC was given five working days – with the deadline Monday – to hand over the full records dating back to 1 January 2013.
The DA filed legal papers against the ANC last year to have the governing party’s cadre deployment policy declared unconstitutional and unlawful.
The court directed the governing party to hand over complete meeting minutes, email correspondence, WhatsApp conversations, CVs and all other relevant documentation.
In a statement the opposition party said, “As soon as we have processed the voluminous documentation, the DA will fulfil our longstanding undertaking to make public the ANC’s dirty cadre secrets for every South African to see.
“If the ANC has erased and manipulated parts of the information or sought to otherwise undermine the Constitutional Court’s order, the DA will launch further legal action to hold ANC leaders personally accountable.”
The DA accuses President Cyril Ramaphosa of helping to facilitate state capture during his tenure as chairman of the deployment committee.
“This victory for transparency and the rule of law comes after the ANC was forced to bend the knee before the DA in court, where we won three successive battles, with cost orders, extending all the way to the Constitutional Court,” said Schreiber.
The party has defended its policy, saying it is an international phenomenon.
The ANC earlier said in a press statement that although it would hand over the records, the opposition party and Schreiber were both “fully aware” that deployment committee minutes for five years could not be found.
The ANC told the State Capture Commission probing state capture in June 2021 that despite a “thorough search” for the minutes of its national deployment committee, it could find no documents “for the period December 2012 to December 2017”. This was when Ramaphosa chaired the committee.
“Dr Leon Schreiber and the DA are fully aware [of] these facts, but have chosen to engage in deliberate misrepresentation, threats and false expectations of what might be contained in the records,” the ANC said in Monday’s statement.
Nevertheless, the party said it would hand over “all records that have been found, and give an explanation regarding those records which either do not exist, or have not been able to be found”.
It added that “precautions” had been taken to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act, “to protect the personal information of those who have not given consent for its release”.
The ANC continues to maintain that deployment by political parties is not unique to itself, reiterating that its cadre development policy and deployment strategy are “designed to advance the constitutional goal of transformation”.
In his state capture report, Chief Justice Raymond Zondo found that the ANC believed it was “entitled” to deploy “its people” to the boards of state-owned enterprises, even if this was to the detriment of the entity and the country.
It also found that the deployment committee made recommendations or stated preferences when it came to educational institutions, judicial vacancies, local government and international organisations, among others.
Zondo said that the deployment policy was both unconstitutional and illegal, violating the Public Service Act and several subsections of the Constitution, and played an enabling role in state capture.
Ramaphosa has defended the practice. Both he and ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe told Zondo, when appearing before the commission, that the committee did not decide on appointments.
In his findings, Zondo said it appeared “that the committee does not always merely make recommendations but in fact often instructs appointing authorities on who to appoint”.
The constitutional court last Monday dismissed the ANC’s application for direct leave to appeal a high court order that compelled it to submit documents on the decisions taken by the cadre deployment committee.