The ANC has refused to hand over decade-long records of its cadre deployment to the DA in line with a high court ruling, arguing that the records are confidential and making them public would undermine its internal processes.
The ruling, handed down by the high court in Johannesburg in February, puts the governing party in a difficult position because in addition to being required to hand over its records to the DA, it could mean that senior government officials recommended by the ANC’s deployment policy could be out of jobs.
After the February judgment, which required it to hand over the records within days, the ANC launched an appeal.
“The ANC is not the state because it does not derive its authority from the constitution. The ANC is a voluntary association and has a contractual relationship with its members. It is accountable to its members,” the party says in filed appeal papers.
The ANC cadre deployment practice, which the DA wants declared unconstitutional and replaced with merit-based appointments throughout the public sector, has been used by the ANC to help fast-track transformation and to better implement its policies.
However, it has been blamed for a series of service delivery failures, with fingers pointed at the ANC for appointing cadres to critical roles in departments, agencies and enterprises who often lack the skills, competence or training and experience to run them.
In the final part of the state-capture report released in June 2022, chief justice Raymond Zondo, who chaired the inquiry into state capture, declared the policy unconstitutional and illegal. This was after it came under much criticism at the commission, with evidence leaders suggesting it is one of the foundations of corruption and inefficiency in the government and state-owned enterprises.
In 2021, DA MP Leon Schreiber lodged an application in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) for the ruling party to hand over its complete records of its cadre deployment committee since 2013, when Cyril Ramaphosa became chair of the committee. The high court ruled in favour of Schreiber, saying the ANC’s refusal to hand over the records of the committee, including emails, minutes and text messages, is unlawful and invalid.
In its application to overturn the judgment, the ANC says Schreiber should not be given the records because he is not a member of the ANC and is therefore not entitled to information generation in internal discussions of the party.
“They [Schreiber and the DA] do not have a duty of oversight over the ANC and the workings of the ANC’s internal committees,” the party says in the document.
The ANC insists its deployment committee does not appoint any of the party’s members into key strategic government positions but rather recommends names of those who are “fit for purpose and meeting the requirements to apply”.
“Information about appointments into the public sector or public service and the considerations taken into account should be requested from those ministers and organs and [the] state, not from the ANC. The ANC does not appoint anyone to the public sector or public service,” the party says.
“We now await a date from the court where it will decide whether to grant the appeal,” says Schreiber.
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