DA VICTORY
ANC must hand over cadre deployment records after losing court appeal
The Supreme Court of Appeal has rejected the ANC’s attempt to appeal against a court victory for the DA over the practice of cadre deployment. Unless the ruling party tries to approach the Constitutional Court, it now has five days to hand over its cadre deployment records.
The DA’s court challenges to the ANC practice of cadre deployment are gathering momentum — as the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruled on Monday that the ANC could not appeal against an earlier loss in the high court on the matter.
The ANC had approached the appellate court in the hope of overturning a February 2023 ruling in the Johannesburg High Court which directed the ANC to provide the DA with its internal records pertaining to cadre deployment within five court days.
The SCA has now dismissed the ANC’s bid in this regard, on the grounds that “there are no reasonable prospects of success in an appeal and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard”.
Schreiber’s mission
It is the indefatigable DA MP Leon Schreiber who has taken aim squarely at cadre deployment: the practice that sees the ANC convene a kind of internal appointments committee to discuss filling vacancies in the public service, ideally with loyal ANC members.
Schreiber has already succeeded in having the minutes from the ANC’s deployment committee between 2018 and 2020 made public. Arguably the biggest bombshell to come out of those minutes was the revelation that the ANC’s committee deliberates on Chapter 9 institution appointments and the selection of judges — despite the fact that these decisions are supposed to be made devoid of political interference.
But these minutes failed to cover a far more critical period of recent South African history: the Zuma era, during which time the current President, Cyril Ramaphosa, chaired the ANC’s deployment committee from 2013.
Depending on what these earlier minutes show, they could be a grave political embarrassment for Ramaphosa. It may well be for this reason that the ANC has been strenuously fighting their release.
But unless the ruling party approaches the apex court in a last-ditch attempt to stymie Schreiber, the judgment handed down in February now stands. In other words, the ANC has to cough up its internal records “in relation to the process and decisions of the ANC’s national cadre deployment committee between 1 January 2013 and 1 January 2021”, within five days.
Ruling a vindication – DA
“With this ruling, the SCA has vindicated the DA’s long-held position that it is illegal for the ANC to hide the way in which it interferes in appointments to the public administration in government departments, municipalities and state-owned enterprises,” Schreiber said in a press release following the SCA verdict.
“For over two decades, a small group of senior ANC figures have regularly met in smoke-filled backrooms at Luthuli House to corrupt appointment processes by ensuring that only ‘loyal cadres’ of the ANC are appointed to positions of power in the public sector.”
The ANC has contended that this type of characterisation by Schreiber is greatly overblown.
The second piece of litigation the DA has brought on the matter is to attempt to have the practice of cadre deployment declared unconstitutional as a whole. When this matter was heard in the Pretoria High Court in January 2023, lawyers for the ANC argued that there was little evidence that the deployment committee actually succeeded in all its desired placements, or that the practice per se led to corruption.
The ruling on the constitutionality of cadre deployment is still pending.
Schreiber said on Monday: “The combined effect of these two court cases will be to both pierce the veil of secrecy that shrouds cadre deployment, and to smash the foundations upon which it is built.” DM
By now, the ANC’s national cadre deployment committee minutes applicable between 1 January 2013 and 1 January 2021 have been carefully removed, watered down or destroyed……!
Helen Zille was right that cadre deployment is the single biggest poison destroying the state. The more obvious ills like corruption and incompetence are observable and logical outcomes of having people in key positions based on their allegiance to the ANC. The GAIN Group study revealed the dysfunction at Transnet alone will cost the country 5% in GDP in 2023.
Yes. Helen Zille is right about an awful lot of things – if only people had the ability to be objective.
Nothing in it , shamefully only names of cadres. Denise Smit
Well, the dog’s definitely going to eat that homework.
Well done Leon! We’ll done DA!
I wonder if the anc at lutuli house can afford a shredder?….they are going to need it!
I suggest he DA call on the court for the protection of these records lest they, like the anc’s promises, simply “vanish”?
Hopefully it’s not a phrrhic victory by the DA.
It would be interesting to see how the DA intends to “preserve” whatever may be left of the “minutes” and those minutes that allegedly were never written…….what hogwash.
Nice try but don’t hold your breath. The ANC is more likely to amend legislation than divulge their ‘secret’ practices around cadre deployment. Their only skills, it seems, are lying, obfuscation, and stealing. If any records are eventually shown, they’re likely to have been subjected to severe editing.
C’mon y’all. This will simply be another ‘Stolen Docket’ episode. These guys feel nothing about the citizens of South Africa and will simply apply another wrecking ball clean-up of Ramaphosa’s implementation and long standing support of the ANC’s cadre deployment program.