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- The DA will lay complaints about the appointment processes revealed in the minutes of the ANC deployment committee.
- The party says between May 2018 and May 2021, the ANC intervened in 88 different state institutions, including courts.
- The party will also call for an urgent debate and is busy with two pieces of legislation, one to outlaw cadre deployment and another to establish an anti-corruption commission.
The DA will ask the Public Service Commission (PSC) to investigate each appointment laid bare in the minutes of the ANC cadre deployment committee, which was published by the State Capture Commission last week.
According to DA MP and spokesperson on the public service, Leon Schreiber, the DA's analysis of the minutes showed that during the Ramaphosa presidency - from May 2018 to May 2021 - the committee intervened in appointment processes at 88 different state institutions.
This included courts, Chapter 9 institutions, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and government departments. During these three years, the committee summoned 29 ministers and deputy ministers and Ramaphosa himself to direct the appointment of ANC cadres to key positions.
"Our complaint will request that the PSC, as the constitutional custodian of the public service, investigate each and every one of the appointments contained in the ANC's cadre deployment committee minutes. In cases where the PSC confirms illegality, the DA will insist that those appointment processes are rerun and that, this time, skilled applicants are not excluded simply because they are not cadres of the corrupt ANC," Schreiber said.
READ | DA raises alarm over ANC deployment committee meeting minutes
The DA presented their analysis of the minutes to the media on Wednesday.
Apart from lodging complaints with the PSC, DA deputy chief whip Siviwe Gwarube will also be writing to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to request an urgent debate of national importance on the devastating effects of cadre deployment on the public service and the fight against corruption.
"But approaching the PSC and initiating a debate of national importance in Parliament is only the first step in what will be a concerted and sustained campaign by the DA over the coming months to use the historic window of opportunity created by our publication of these minutes and the State Capture Commission to abolish cadre deployment once and for all," said Schreiber.
Zenith
The DA would also continue to press to obtain the minutes of the cadre deployment committee during the Zuma administration when state capture reached its zenith, and President Cyril Ramaphosa was chairperson of the ANC's deployment committee.
Schreiber would also continue with his work to have his private member's bill to outlaw cadre deployment passed by Parliament. The DA had another private members' bill in the works related to state capture. This bill would seek to establish an anti-corruption commission as a new Chapter 9 institution, similar to the Scorpions, whose disbandment was pushed through Parliament by the ANC.
DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach, a former prosecutor, said this commission would have complete independence, report to Parliament, and have its own budget to investigate corruption effectively and prosecute it effectively.
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Breytenbach said the report released was an interim report.
"It would be impossible to encourage litigation, for instance, or prosecutions, based on this interim report because that's exactly what it is. It would be premature," she said.
"One needs to wait for one hopes a more detailed report at the end of January, and then a final report then touches on the major issues in a little more depth and then makes substantive recommendations."
Breytenbach said the report noted that the NPA had failed to prosecute state capture.
"Of course, we've seen that, over the years, that nothing has happened, that state capture cases have not been prosecuted." She said the NPA's incapacity was directly related to cadre deployment.
"The NPA has been hollowed out. It has been decimated, with political interference at the NPA and, of course, with political appointments."
Schreiber was asked if the DA did not also practice cadre deployment where it governed. He denied this was the case, saying the DA did not have a central committee that subverted legal appointment processes.
Breytenbach, who serves on the Judicial Services Commission, was asked whether she discussed judicial appointments with any DA party structures.
"I can happily say I have never consulted with anyone in the DA about the judges and the interviewing of judges for court benches around the country," Breytenbach responded.
READ | 'State capture would have not been enabled at GCIS if Themba Maseko was not axed by Zuma' - Zondo
She said individuals might be sent to the JSC as a party representative by the National Assembly, but they did not represent the party at the JSC.
"It is not a party political institution. I have not ever, not even on one occasion, discussed the shortlisted judges with members of the DA caucus with a view to getting some sort of instruction about who should be preferred and who not."
In his testimony before the commission last year, ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe, the party's secretary-general during the state capture years, said the ANC did not have a "cadre deployment policy", but a "deployment policy".
He said the ANC's deployment committee only made recommendations on who should be appointed. It was the government structures that employed people.
When Ramaphosa appeared before the commission, he also defended the deployment committee and the practice, saying it happened all over the world.
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