Where are the ANC cadre deployment committee’s meeting minutes?

It has emerged that the ANC’s cadre deployment committee did not keep records of its meetings from 2012 to 2017.

President Cyril Ramaphosa on Wednesday told the Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture that he did not recall minutes being taken during the committee’s meetings, when he chaired the committee as the country’s then-deputy president.

The committee is responsible for making recommendations on the appointment of ANC members to government and state-owned entities (SOEs).

“When I was chair of the deployment committee, I do not recall ever having to go through the minutes of the previous meeting. We always tended to deal with the issues at hand on a contemporaneous basis as they were presented,” Ramaphosa said.

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“I think you can ascribe that to rather unfortunate record-keeping processes because, in the main, the ANC has so many meetings, one after the other. There are so many committees and I think those who are in charge would just take notes and record the decision and it’s then communicated,” he added.

Ramaphosa is back at the commission to continue his giving testimony, particularly about his roles as the country’s then-deputy president and current president.

The commission’s evidence leader, advocate Paul Pretorius, said the commission requested the deployment committee’s minutes from the ANC. However, they were told there were no minutes available for its meetings from 2012 to 2017.

Pretorius said it was strange that there were no minutes available.

“It seems rather strange that there were no minutes or no minutes available… it just seems improbable that there were no minutes,” he said.

During his last appearance at the commission in April, Ramaphosa said the committee merely made recommendations and proposals on the appointment of ANC members to government.

‘Committee gave instructions’

Pretorius on Wednesday said there was strong evidence that the deployment committee gave instructions on which appointments had to be made.

He referred to meeting minutes post-2017, which he said indicated that the committee “decides and instructs” on government appointments.

But Ramaphosa stuck to his guns that the deployment committee was “not an appointment committee”.

Ramaphosa also conceded that ANC deployees who did not have the correct skills, competency and integrity to be in government were appointed nonetheless.

“Where the deployment has resulted in people who are incompetent, I would concede that that was an error.”

Ramaphosa told the commission that, in the end, there were safety processes in government positions where the legally mandated policies should be followed.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) said the commission, chaired by Justice Raymond Zondo, had agreed to its request to disclose meeting minutes of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee.

Judicial appointments

Ramaphosa was also asked about a meeting of the ANC’s deployment committee that discussed vacancies in the judiciary.

Pretorius asked him why the committee was recommending judicial appointments when the Judicial Service Commission (JSE) existed for this purpose.

The president said the committee knew very well that it was not the appointing structure.

He said the committee discussing judiciary appointments should be looked at positively as it contributed to transformation in the judiciary.

“I can say, as a deployee of the ANC, the fact that today we have so many female judicial officers, is because of the ANC’s insistence,” Ramaphosa said.