The highest court of appeal dismissed the ANC’s application to appeal against an earlier court decision that all records of its cadre deployment committee must be handed over to the DA.
The Court of Appeal found that the ANC’s application for leave to appeal had “no reasonable prospects of success” and that there were “no other compelling reasons why an appeal should be heard”. The ANC’s application was dismissed with costs.
This means that within days the ANC must hand over the complete records and minutes of its cadre deployment committee, which date from 1 January 2013 when Pres. Cyril Ramaphosa became chairman of this committee, handed over to the DA. This includes meeting minutes, WhatsApp conversations, emails, CVs and other relevant documents. The ANC may decide to turn to the Constitutional Court.
Dr. Leon Schreiber, DA MP and the party’s spokesperson on public administration and the public service, said the Court of Appeal’s ruling confirms the DA’s long-standing position that it is illegal for the ANC to interfere in the way it interferes with appointments in the public administration hiding in government departments, municipalities and state enterprises.
“For more than two decades, a small group of senior ANC figures regularly met in smoke-filled back rooms at Luthuli House to corrupt appointment processes by ensuring that only ‘loyal cadres’ of the ANC were appointed to positions of power in the public sector. As a result, skilled and deserving applicants are sidelined, with positions held out on the basis of loyalty to the ANC.”
According to Schreiber, this is the reason why the DA believes that cadre deployment is the main cause of state capture, lack of skills and the collapse of service delivery in the country.
“Secrecy has been instrumental in the ANC’s practice of cadre deployment corruption, because it makes it impossible for the South African people to see how appointment processes are being corrupted. But thanks to the DA, the secrecy that helps sustain ANC cadre deployment is now gradually ending.”
According to Schreider, the DA is also currently awaiting a verdict in a second court application, where he asked the Pretoria High Court to declare ANC cadre deployment unconstitutional and illegal.
“The combined effect of these two court cases will be to pierce the veil of secrecy that surrounds cadre deployment and to tear down the foundations on which it is built.
“The DA is conducting this campaign against cadre deployment because we realize that the abolition of this practice and its replacement with merit-based appointments, purely on the basis of skills, in the public sector is essential for our mission to save South Africa.”
