The Democratic Alliance (DA) has launched an urgent contempt order application against the ANC after it did not provide it with all records of the deployment committee when it was chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa.
DA Member of Parliament Leon Schreiber said the Constitutional Court made it clear in its judgment a few weeks ago that the ANC must hand over all records of the deployment committee.
However, the ANC only gave the DA parts of these records. He said this was a failure by the ANC to comply with the order of the Constitutional Court to hand over all records.
“The ANC has defied the court order by failing to to disclose any minutes, attendance registers, communications or decisions of the committee’s proceedings for a five-year period from January 1, 2013 to May 2018. This is the very same period in which the ANC’s, and the country’s current President, Cyril Ramaphosa was the chairperson of the committee,” said Schreiber in his court application.
Schreiber said ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula said there were no records for these meetings because minutes were not kept.
He added that Mbalula said this was confirmed by the Zondo Commission’s report.
Ramaphosa appeared before the Zondo Commission in 2021 where he said there were no records of meetings of the deployment committee when he was chairing it.
In his papers in the Johannesburg High Court, Schreiber said he approached the court for a contempt order because the ANC must shed light on how people were deployed in senior positions in government.
“As I explained in my affidavit in the application before (Judge) Wepener, the purpose of accessing the committee’s records would be to understand, among others, which positions have been targeted in the past for deployment, whether there was any unlawfulness in the process, who the beneficiaries were, and what the motivations and incentives were in making particular appointments.
“This, I explained, would provide information that is crucial to me exercising my role as a Member of Parliament and of the portfolio committee on Public Service and Administration to reviewing key appointments and transactions in the public sector that may require further investigation and political oversight.”
Schreiber said even the records that were sent by the ANC to the DA were of poor quality.
He said failure by the ANC to give it records from 2013 to 2018 showed the ANC was not willing to comply with the order of the apex court.
As a ruling party, the ANC cannot be seen to be defying the court.
The reason for the ANC to delay giving the DA the records was because of the impact it would have on the election, said Schreiber in his papers.
The DA and the ANC have been accusing each other of cadre deployment after Ramaphosa called for the DA to hand over its records of cadre deployment.
Former DA mayor in Midvaal Bongani Baloyi said a few weeks ago that the DA practised cadre deployment and the Federal Executive was involved.
But this was denied by DA leader John Steenhuisen who said where the party governs people were appointed on merit, not loyalty to the party.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
Politics