Panicked ANC runs to Constitutional Court to delay release of its dirty cadre secrets

10 September 2023

The ANC has descended into full-blown panic as it tries to delay the inevitable release of its cadre deployment secrets to the people of South Africa.

Last week, the DA scored yet another victory in our ongoing quest to expose the ANC’s dirty cadre deployment secrets when the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) dismissed the ANC’s attempt to appeal two earlier rulings by the Johannesburg High Court. Like the High Court, the SCA dismissed the ANC’s bid with a costs order and without even granting leave to appeal, because “there are no reasonable prospects of success in an appeal and there is no other compelling reason why an appeal should be heard.”

Out of sheer panic to delay the public release of its dirty secrets, the ANC has now run to the Constitutional Court. On Friday, the DA received a letter from the ANC’s attorneys indicating that the party will appeal this case to the Constitutional Court.

Like all of the ANC’s previous attempts, this final court bid is doomed to fail. There simply exists no legal grounds for the ANC to keep its cadre deployment records secret, because the entire reason that cadre deployment exists is to enable the ANC to interfere in appointments to positions in the public sector. Cadre deployment therefore directly impacts on the public, through loadshedding and widespread service delivery collapse, which means that the public has a constitutional and inherent right to know the contents of all cadre deployment records.

Despite the slight delay it is likely to cause, the DA welcomes the opportunity to defeat, once and for all, the ANC’s illegal attempt to keep its cadre deployment records secret in the highest court in the land. We are confident that the Constitutional Court will dismiss this frivolous waste of court resources by the ANC with the contempt it deserves. Once the Court has done so, the ANC will have nowhere left to hide and it will be forced to immediately hand over meeting minutes, WhatsApp conversations, email threads, CVs and all other cadre deployment documents to the DA. Should it come to it, the DA will also insist on jail time and a contempt-of-court order against any ANC leader that attempts to delay this process after the Constitutional Court rejects this last appeal attempt.

As we have said from the start when we launched this fight for transparency over three years ago, the DA commits to analyzing and making publicly available all ANC cadre deployment records with the people of South Africa. The people have the right to know how the ANC’s national cadre deployment committee – which was chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa from 2013 – illegally interfered in appointment processes to facilitate state capture.

The DA has steadfastly maintained that the ANC, through its system of cadre deployment, is directly responsible for state capture, rampant corruption and the collapse of service delivery throughout our country. The ANC uses cadre deployment to corrupt appointments to ensure that “loyal cadres” are appointed to positions of power, thereby locking out skilled and qualified applicants. In return, these cadres are expected to promote the corrupt interests of the ANC, rather than the interests of the South African people.

All of this will soon be confirmed when the DA exposes the ANC’s dirty secrets in the Constitutional Court.

We are currently also awaiting a ruling in our second court application, where we have asked the Pretoria High Court to declare ANC cadre deployment unconstitutional and unlawful. 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. Defeating cadre deployment ahead of the 2024 election is an essential part of the groundwork being laid by the DA to take over and rescue the South African state after the coming national election.

Statement issued by Dr Leon Schreiber MP - DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 10 September 2023