By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Democratic Alliance (DA) will launch a contempt of court application against the African National Congress (ANC) to obtain copies of the emails and WhatsApps relevant to the period when the President, Cyril Ramaphosa, served as chairman of the cadre deployment committee during the height of state capture between 2013 and 2018.
The party will also file an application for leave to appeal the North Gauteng High Court judgement handed down on Tuesday.
The ANC failed to include Ramaphosa’s own emails and WhatsApps in the material it handed over to the DA, despite the fact that Ramaphosa was chairman of this committee during this period and was one of the recipients of the emails and WhatsApp messages in question. He ultimately bears responsibility for its operations but fails to depose to an affidavit confirming he has no documents or information for this period, said DA leader John Steenhuisen.
Briefing the media in Cape Town on Friday, Steenhuisen said, “The ANC extensively redacted the documents despite not being entitled to do so by the court order. The ANC also failed to mention this in their court papers.”
The briefing follows recent judgments by the Gauteng High Court and the Constitutional Court in the DA’s ongoing battle against cadre deployment corruption.
“They failed to provide a list of all decisions taken by the cadre deployment committee, as ordered by the court; they impermissibly restricted communication disseminated during the year 2020.
“They furnished illegible documents; they destroyed documents whilst the matter was pending before the court.”
The DA believes Ramaphosa ultimately bears responsibility for the operations but claims he failed to depose an affidavit confirming he has no documents or information for this period.
“They failed to provide minutes that were not formally adopted, even though the court order obliges the party to hand over all relevant information,” Steenhuisen said.
“The ANC also failed to provide any information for the period between 2013 and 2018, despite the court ordering that it must include this period when Ramaphosa was cadre chairman.
“As we point out in our letter that the PAIA request “is not limited to minutes of committee meetings but extends to all information on the processes and decisions of the committee during the period 2013-2021…”
Early this week the ANC said it would give an explanation where there were no records available, but the party has complied with the order directed by the court.
The ANC said cadre deployment was practised in the Global North and Global South and South Africa was no exception.
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Video Courtesy of DA.