PARTY SECRETS
ANC given five days to release contentious cadre deployment records to DA
The ANC has reached the end of the line in its attempts to thwart the DA from seeing the party’s cadre deployment records, the Constitutional Court ruled on Monday.
South Africa’s apex court has refused to grant the ANC further legal appeals in the ruling party’s bid to keep its cadre deployment records out of opposition hands.
On Monday, the Constitutional Court ruled that “it is not in the interests of justice for leave to appeal to be granted”, and dismissed the ANC’s application with costs.
The ANC had approached the highest court after the Supreme Court of Appeal found in September 2023 that the party could not appeal against an earlier high court loss on the matter. The Constitutional Court ruling on Monday now means that the ANC has exhausted its legal avenues.
Records could be major political headache for Ramaphosa
Driving the legal process against the ANC has been DA MP Leon Schreiber, who asked the courts to compel the ANC to make public all records relating to the party’s cadre deployment committee.
Previously, Schreiber’s litigation succeeded in effecting the release of 58 pages of committee meeting minutes held between 2018 and 2020. The records showed how the ANC’s cadre deployment committee routinely meets to deliberate on individuals to fill a wide range of positions within the public sector: from government departments to Chapter Nine institutions as well as, most controversially, the judiciary.
During the 2018 to 2020 period, the deployment committee was chaired by former deputy president David Mabuza.
The documents Schreiber has been after more recently are far more significant. They are the cadre deployment records for the peak State Capture period, between 1 January 2013 and 1 January 2021.
Potentially most explosively, this is the period during which President Cyril Ramaphosa — then acting as deputy — chaired the committee.
The DA is likely to make significant mileage out of Ramaphosa’s personal involvement in the practice of cadre deployment, whatever the records show.
DA hails great legal victory
“Today marks one of the great victories in South African legal and democratic history,” Schreiber said in a statement on Monday.
“In terms of the judgment, the ANC now has five working days to hand over to the DA all meeting minutes, CVs, email threads, Whatsapp discussions and other relevant documents relating to the cadre deployment committee, dating back more than a decade. The ANC has run out of road and must now expose the secrets it was so desperate to hide.”
The ANC had not responded to Daily Maverick’s request for comment at time of writing.
The party’s defence with regards to cadre deployment in the past has been that the controversial committee in question merely makes recommendations; it cannot dictate who should be appointed.
The DA will be hoping that the new tranche of records offer firm evidence that the committee effectively usurps the power of members of the executive in making decisions about state appointments. DM
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Luthuli House basement flooding 2.0 loading…
Yup, surely they can’t blame an electrical fire.
4 sleeps…
I would love to see who the records on the cadre deployment indicate were forced on us ratepayers in Ekhurhuleni.
The city manager has already been found guilty by the public protector of illegally appointing cadres without the required competence and qualifications and was supposed to be disciplined for it (I have never been able to get information on whether she was disciplined and, if she was, what her punishment was).
The real test is how we can hold the persons responsible for the illegal appointments and the appointed cadres to account, will they or the ANC be liable for the costs of the salaries that we made as ratepayers and how do we recover such?
And how can we prevent these illegal activities from ever happening again as the cost to the country is immeasurable (just think of the billions that the previous minister of transport cost us taxpayers because he was incapable of making proper decisions and protecting our infrastructure).
And they expect the ANC to be honest about this? BWHAHAHA!!! Schreiber has more of a chance of falling pregnant.
“”Schreiber has more of a chance of falling pregnant.””
In this ridiculous trans world we now live in, there are many who will tell you it’s possible.
Don’t know whether to laugh or cry!
Why exactly is trans ridiculous?
A great result!
Good. You can run but, you can’t hide ..Thank you DA. Afumanekile lamasela .
Thank u DA
Great news for a Monday afternoon – I’m rubbing my hands in glee!
Thank you DA!!
I wonder if the ANC would have kept all those records.
The bonfire has already been lit
More chickens coming home to roost.
Now let’s see what’s under the carpet. Will be messy.
Now let’s see what’s under the carpet. Will be messy. Sleepless nights ahead for some.
Oh sorry, the dog ate our homework – nothing to see here
Power without responsibility – the prerogative of harlots throughout the ages. – Rudyard Kipling
Doubt that anything in this will make the slightest difference to the true believers who vote for them regardless.
Right, but not all past ANC voters are “true believers”. There are some thinkers among them.
Not many though
Well that’s a lot of homework for the dog to get through in 5 days, but I’m sure they will make a plan.
Shredding machine is working overtime !
Vote DA !
Get the wors ready. Probably another fire coming…
I invented the ideal office machine! It is a printer mounted above a shredder! End of incriminating paperwork!!
I don’t have a dog in the fight here, but really? Does anybody think that if we have President John Steenhuizen then the DA won’t be at least trying to have a say in these appointments? Or ActionSA. Or the EFF. Or whoever else you would like to see running the country or thinks might run the country.
You’d quickly find minutes recording, for obvious example, that Mrs Zille complained that one of the short listed candidates was a bit too woke.
Always refreshing to see an unbiased post. Most political parties do this. Globally. The ANC is not the first and probably not the last to do it in SA. So then maybe it’s less a question of cadre deployment (which of course is a bad political nepotism that deny others opportunities), but more the eligibility criteria. The question the ANC has to answer more crucially, is about unrelenting, unchecked and unmitigated poor performance.
For a party to nominate a preferred candidate for appointment to, for example, the post of Director-General of a national department may not be that unusual, but my gut instinct is that dictating to that DG who to appoint all the way down the ladder, is a bit more unprecedented in constitutional democracies. (Of course, I say this while we do not yet know for a fact how far the tentacles of this cadre deployment committee stretches — maybe soon we will.)
The burning question is, would allowing those appointed senior officials to assemble their own teams actually yield better results in SA, considering what we’ve seen?
I do think though, surely you will agree Bob, that the DA etc will at least appoint credible people
You “don’t have a dog in the fight?” Sounds like a dogfight to me. Wokeness is definitely a factor in a job application.
Getting at Zille again this time of the morning. Shame , you have nothing else to offer?
“Big ” men going for “poor” woman again
Most probably two passports?
Well done DA. Accountability Now!
Next up : the documents are released but redacted so as to be useless.
If there were actual minutes or recordings, it would make for a good soap opera when the candidate comrade cadres get to read/listen to what the cadre committee had to say about comrade cadre A vs B vs C for position X.
This is the only comment that makes sense to me. There never can be records on such discussions, because they are opinion based, arguable and therefore decisive .
This is a great win for the DA and decent, honest citizens, but who are we kidding that we’ll ever get to see these documents? The cadres aren’t as stupid as they look – they shredded them ages ago, or maybe Squirrel has used them as stuffing in his couches.
Right. Shredded documents will great evidence of probable guilt!
The President and SG are busy eating the minutes, along with their dogs
Excellent news, thank you! Cadre deployment certainly is the poison that has promoted state capture, corruption, and maladministration to destroy the country. It must be banned in section 193 of the Constititution and criminalized in the Public Service Act to bring the scourge to an end and for the country to have a hope of recovering.
How sure will the DA be that it gets the entire material it’s looking for? The ANC has been roundly condemned for it’s dishonesty and racial profiling in handing out jobs to cadres over many years. This would be OK if the jobs were given to people who were qualified, experienced, and conscientious, but the dire straits the country is now in, exposes the rot of people being employed regardless of qualifications or merit. Party loyalty bought thousands of cushy, highly paid jobs which resulted in chaos in all our SOE’s and elsewhere. Strength to the DA. May their efforts result in the eniding of these treasonous political favours.
So now the NC will have to resort toillegal moves to hide the truth. What’s new>
Interesting – I have no doubt that other parties and cadres themselves will be just as interested. Reaches for popcorn and hope the opening act doesnt take too long.
….and we all read this with much anticipation forgetting that most of the potential voters are not reading the same news, and if they are will have some excuse why the ANC behaviour is acceptable, or simply don’t give a toss. The principle of cadre deployment the the ANC context is gravy train enrichment and protection from reality or incrimination.
Did they keep records?
No doubt the shredding machines in the basement of Luthuli House is hard at work. One cannot accept that the ANC will release the documents, it is just not in their DNA. I must admit I am elated that the DA triumphed here, in their quest for the cadre deployment documents. The success will be that the documents are handed over within 5 days, as instructed, but then, this may be wishful thinking.
No comment. Wish to read comments please.
I applaud the DA for their actions and Mr Schreiber in particular. What I would however be interested to know is whether the DA believe (a) the ANC kept any proper records and (b) if so, whether they are confident this will be released to them in full?
I have to assume that Mr Schreiber has already anticipated ‘this is only the beginning and not the end of the story’ and has some kind of strategy if the ANC comes back with ‘sorry, but the dog ate it’ excuse?
Sorry, but can’t see the ANC complying fully with this judgement – it would be just to damning
That would make it a win-win for SA. By not producing anything the guilt is glaringly obvious
The guilt is already glaringly obvious due to the fact that the ANC fought this all the way. If they had nothing to hide, they would have released these documents ages ago!
This is only part of what we would like to see. Consequences with payment for all the billions stolen and wasted by these cronies.
For me, I would go straight for the records relating to Hlaudi Motseneng. He was appointed as COO of the SABC approximately in 2014 and was clearly utterly hopelessly and absolutely unqualified. He was barely literate. But he set about on day one to intentionally capture and destroy the public broadcaster. He was way more than a buffoon He was put there on purpose. By Ramaphosa.
As did every single cadre deployment – their mandate was to steal, plain and simple, it’s why they did this in the first place
So? We all know they’ve been doing it. It’s not illegal. It’s going to make no difference at all.
I am unconvinced that we will see those documents. The ANC has never shown respect for the legalities of our constitution and by implication the constitutional court or we wouldn’t be in our current mess. However well done done DA and triply well done to our courts where it appears cadre deployment failed!
The discussions leading to Weekend Special appointment should be comedy gold.
Once the cadres, commies and comrades list us handed over there ought to be a public rogues gallery set up online, with all the names and identity numbers of all the miscreants who have looted the country’s coffers, and the amounts they stole.
They all need to be exposed so that the local populace can see how their ‘brothers’ are screwing them over, and international interests can see exactly who they are getting into bed with when try come knocking to do an investment deal.
It’s a victory indeed not only for a DA but in terms of strengthening the democracy as we have noticed that some of those deployed doesn’t meet departments requirements and this is what’s killing the departments head to make a sober decisions as always feel threatened.
Needless to say….99% of the records will mysteriosly ‘disappear’
Thank you, DA!
Just this one correction will save SA billions.