ANC ordered to pay costs as party loses bid to keep cadre deployment records secret

The African National Congress (ANC) has once again failed in its bid to conceal its cadre deployment records.

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Monday dismissed the ANC’s application to appeal a high court judgment ordering the governing party to release its deployment committee records to the Democratic Alliance (DA).

‘No prospect of success’

According to the DA, the SCA found that there was “no reasonable prospect of success in an appeal” and there was “no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard”.

The court dismissed the ANC’s application for leave to appeal with costs.

“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,” DA MP Leon Schreiber said in a statement on Tuesday.

“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 corrupted.”

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Schreiber said the initial ruling stood as a result of the SCA’s decision, meaning that the ANC has five days to hand over the records – including meeting minutes, emails and WhatsApp conversations from 2013 – to the DA.

The DA initially lodged a request for the ANC’s records in terms of Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) in 2021 as part of the party’s bigger pursuit to have cadre deployment declared unconstitutional and illegal.

The judgment in the matter was reserved by the Pretoria High Court.

“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,” Schreiber said.

Earlier this year, the ANC defended its deployment policy, arguing that all political parties had the right to make suggestions on who should be appointed to key positions in the public service.

Committee minutes

The ANC deployment committee’s minutes, from 2018 to 2021, revealed how the party ran a parallel process to fill certain positions at several government departments, agencies and the boards of SOEs.

According to the minutes from a meeting held on 22 March 2019, the committee preselected the appointment of judges for vacant posts in the judiciary.

The Constitutional Court (ConCourt) at the time had two vacant positions, while the SCA had one.

READ MORE: ANC’s cadre deployment policy needs to go

Ramaphosa defended the deployment policy during his testimony at the State Capture Commission, arguing the policy was an important part of implementing the ANC’s mandate.

The president also said the deployment committee did not keep records of its meetings from 2012 to 2017.

It also emerged that the ANC had intended to obtain an interdict against the commission, chaired by Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, from releasing the ruling party’s deployment committee minutes.