ANC loses appeal bid, ordered to unseal cadre deployment records

The African National Congress (ANC) has suffered a blow in court after the governing party’s bid to conceal its cadre deployment records failed.

The ANC had approached the Johannesburg High Court to appeal a ruling forcing the party to provide the Democratic Alliance (DA) with records of its deployment committee from 2013.

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The records include meeting minutes, emails and WhatsApp conversations, among others.

The court case came after the ANC refused the DA’s request for the records in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).

‘No prospect of success’

The DA has since revealed the party has emerged victorious in the appeal matter.

According to the party, the Johannesburg High Court found that “there is no reasonable prospect of success in an appeal, nor is there any reason to refer the appeal to another court”.

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

“The original ruling stands, which means that the ANC has five days to hand over to the DA complete records of its cadre deployment committee,” DA MP Leon Schreiber said in a statement on Tuesday.

Schreiber said the DA believed that the ANC’s attempt to hide the records was to prevent exposing President Cyril Ramaphosa’s “personal complicity in state capture and corruption as cadre deployment chairman”.

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“The system of cadre deployment locks skilled applicants out of employment in the state. It is also the root cause of service delivery failures, because it leads to the appointment of cadres on the basis of loyalty to the ANC, rather than on merit.

“In exchange for this deployment state officials are expected to serve the interests of the ANC, including through corruption and patronage, rather than the people of South Africa,” Schreiber added.

The DA is also seeking to have cadre deployment declared unconstitutional and illegal by the courts.

The matter was heard by the Pretoria High Court in January this year and the judgment has been reserved.

The ANC defended its deployment policy before court, 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 Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) had one.

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PRamaphosa 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.