Mantashe’s brazen defiance of Zondo confirms urgency of DA court case against cadre deployment
25 June 2022
The way in which Gwede Mantashe, ANC chairperson and a person directly implicated in Bosasa corruption by the State Capture Commission, has brazenly defied the findings of the Commission mere days after the completion of its final report, confirms that the DA’s court challenge against ANC cadre deployment is now likely the single most important court case in South Africa. More than any other individual action, it is this court case and the abolition of cadre deployment that will determine whether our country will ever be freed from ANC state capture.
Mantashe, an alleged beneficiary of Bosasa state capture corruption, clearly knows this. Which is why, in response to the Report’s confirmation of the DA’s long-held standpoint that cadre deployment is unconstitutional and unlawful, Mantashe tried to rubbish Chief Justice Raymond Zondo’s finding by claiming that it was “just a commission’s finding, not a court judgement.”
This makes it clear that the ANC is hellbent on defying Zondo by continuing to practice cadre deployment even though the Chief Justice of the Republic has rightly declared the practice to be in violation of our Constitution.
While it is disgusting that one of the most senior officials in the ANC and national government is already attacking the Commission’s findings less than a week after its release, it is not at all surprising. In fact, the DA has always anticipated that the ANC, a party held together only by the corruption and patronage generated by cadre deployment, would attempt to defy these findings. That is why we dragged the entire ANC to the North Gauteng High Court even before the final volume of the Report was released: to ensure that we get a full court order declaring that Mantashe and former cadre deployment chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa violate our laws and Constitution every time they “deploy” a corrupt and incompetent ANC cadre into the public administration.
Mantashe’s defiance bolsters our case even further. In addition to including the Commission’s findings against cadre deployment as evidence in our court case, the DA will now also use Mantashe’s comments to further enhance our case, because his comments prove that the ANC intends to defy the Commission. His brazen comments also confirm that only the full court order that the DA is fighting for will be enough to start undoing the damage wrought by the unconstitutional and unlawful practice of cadre deployment.
The DA has steadfastly maintained that ANC cadre deployment is the foundation of state capture and corruption in South Africa, because it extends the control of the ANC well-beyond the political sphere and deep into the public administration that is supposed to be independent, impartial and merit-based. Now that the State Capture Commission has completely vindicated the DA, Mantashe and the ANC are in a state of complete panic. It appears that the ANC has finally realized that the DA will not stop until we have completely kneecapped cadre deployment, freed the state from ANC capture, and ripped the heart out of their corrupt National Democratic Revolution. Mantashe is right to be panicked, because that is exactly what we are busy doing.
Issued by Leon Schreiber, DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration, 27 June 2022
