The ANC’s cadre deployment records provide insight into how the committee dealt with appointments to key positions at boards of state-owned enterprises and in appointing directors-general, although the details of the applicants have been redacted.
Following a lengthy court battle, the Constitutional Court ordered the ANC to hand over its deployment records from 2013 onwards to the DA by Monday.
Both the ANC and the DA made the documents publicly available on Wednesday, although they only cover the period from 2018, with President Cyril Ramaphosa telling the Zondo Commission into State Capture that it has no records of its deployment committee meetings and decisions between 2013 and 2018 because no minutes were taken.
The only records available were the incomplete minutes the ANC provided to the state capture commission during former deputy president David Mabuza’s tenure as chairperson of the committee.
The documents make it clear that while ministers make recommendations to the deployment committee and seek permission to appoint their chosen candidates, it is the committee that will approve an appointment or send it back for reconsideration.
Ministers have been chastised by the deployment committee for presenting their choices as final and irrevocable, or presenting names to the Cabinet which had not been approved by the committee.
The deployment committee insisted that even before posts were advertised, the committee should be notified.
ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu Motsiri said on Wednesday that the party would continue implementing its cadre development policy and deployment strategy “to ensure that individuals with impressive qualifications, experience and credentials are deployed to build a better life for all South Africans”.
DA MP Leon Schreiber said the party was releasing the documents to allow the public access to crucial information.
“We will continue to scrutinise the documents diligently to unveil the network of cadre deployment corruption and a racketeering syndicate that has corrupted and captured the state.”
Meanwhile, the DA on Wednesday lost its bid to have the court overturn the ANC’s cadre deployment policy.
The Gauteng High Court, Pretoria, handed down its decision on Wednesday.
Three judges, led by Deputy Judge President Aubrey Ledwaba, said it went without saying that influencing government decisions was not the same as political meddling in the affairs of government.
The fight is, however, far from over, with the DA saying that it had already instructed its legal team to appeal this ruling as a matter of urgency.
DA leader John Steenhuisen vowed that they would appeal the matter through the Supreme Court of Appeal and even take the issue to the Constitutional Court.
Judge Ledwaba, who wrote the 40-page judgment, upheld the ANC’s defence that there was no properly pleaded constitutional attack by the DA against the cadre deployment policy.
The court found that “the DA came to court with a case built on speculation and conjecture”.
“Corruption knows no boundaries. It inflicts great harm on society. For that reason it ought not to be used by political parties to pursue political objectives,” the court said in slapping the DA with the ANC’s legal costs for this application.
It includes the cost of five counsel.
The DA had asked the court to declare the ANC’s cadre deployment policy inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid.
Steenhuisen said in an affidavit filed to substantiate the application that the evidence that the DA relied on largely emanated from the state capture commission.
He said the cadre deployment policy of the ANC was to permit it to influence which individuals were appointed to, and employed by, important state institutions.
In doing so, the DA said, the policy ensured that all levels of state power were controlled by ANC loyalists.
The ANC said its policy recommended candidates, it did not dictate to government who should be appointed.
Party policy was that the person best qualified for a job must get it and it was entirely up to the government to decide who was appointed, the ANC told the court.
The court questioned whether it should reject this explanation as implausible. “The short answer is no,” Judge Ledwaba said.
The Mercury