The DA has asked the Zondo commission to investigate the role of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee in facilitating state capture by appointing people to key positions in government and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
The letter by DA spokesperson on public service and administration Leon Schreiber to commission chair deputy chief justice Raymond Zondo on Wednesday was prompted by comments made the same day by former president Jacob Zuma, who told the commission that the ANC as the ruling party had the right to tell the government which loyal cadres should be appointed to these positions.
Schreiber has asked Zondo to call President Cyril Ramaphosa to testify on the issue as he was chair of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee when Zuma was president and when state capture reached its peak.
He also wants all other members of the committee from 2013 to 2017 be called to testify on its role in facilitating state capture by usurping executive authority and appointing compromised individuals to key positions within the government and at the helm of SOEs.
In a letter to Zondo, Schreiber noted that serious allegations had been made before the commission that state capture and corruption was facilitated by the national deployment committee of the ANC. He refers specifically to former public enterprises minister Barbara Hogan’s testimony in November 2018. She described the ANC’s deployment committee as “a handful of people [that] just simply decide this is their preferred candidate”.
Hogan went on to say that “the weakness of the system is that if that deployment committee is captured by whatever forces it can have a fundamental impact on government … the ANC saw it as their right to instruct a minister who should be appointed and not appointed.
“That is an abuse of power and that is usurping executive authority … It cannot be that closeness to or membership of the ANC should be the determining factors in the selection of candidates to senior positions.”
Schreiber said Zondo had noted that Zuma’s testimony raised serious questions about both the legal framework for how senior government appointments were made in SA, and about the specific role of the ANC’s cadre deployment committee in appointing people to powerful positions in the state.
“To get to the root of state capture, it is imperative that the commission investigate the process whereby compromised individuals were appointed to powerful positions so as to facilitate state capture,” Schreiber said in his letter to Zondo. He believes the Public Service Commission (PSC) should be empowered to appoint these individuals and intends to introduce a private member’s bill to entrench this power into law.
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