Ramaphosa dares DA to release its own cadre deployment records

ANC president Cyril Ramaphosa has dared the DA to reveal its own cadre deployment records now that the governing party has handed over its records to the opposition party. 

The ANC this week complied with a Constitutional Court order compelling it to hand over all records pertaining to its cadre deployment committee from 2013 to 2021. 

These records are of private meetings the ANC leaders held to decide on appointments of senior government officials as well as of members of boards and executives of state-owned entities. 

The DA had sought these records as it believes the ANC’s deployment committee was at the centre of appointing executives especially at SOEs who were allegedly involved in state capture.

Its insistence on the records has seemingly backfired after it was alleged that the DA itself has practised cadre deployment. 

However, it's alleged that unlike the ANC, the DA did not establish a special structure for such deployments but that the decisions were made at its federal executive committee meetings. 

This revelation was apparently corroborated by the DA’s Helen Zille in a now seemingly deleted tweet in which she is alleged to have said that cadre deployment was introduced by its erstwhile leader Mmusi Maimane who now heads BOSA and that it had since been done away with. 

Maimane has since released a statement saying there was never such a policy under his leadership of the DA. 

Former DA Midvaal mayor and now leader of Xiluva Bongani Baloyi has also said the DA practised cadre deployment. 

He revealed that as Midvaal mayor between 2013 and 2021 the municipality could not conclude any senior staff appointment without the approval of the party’s federal executive committee.

Ramaphosa has now called on the DA to reciprocate by revealing its cadre deployment records. 

“We have given the records, and we now wait for other parties that have also had the so-called cadre deployment experience and processes to also now reveal their records of their own executive or federal committees or whatever committees,” said Ramaphosa. 

Ramaphosa said the ANC has always maintained that the party deploys people on the basis of their skill set and ability to do the work and not merely on party affiliation. 

“There is nothing sinister about deploying people to do work that needs to be done, nothing sinister whatsoever. But I’m now waiting for records of other parties,” he said. 

Meanwhile the DA has since bemoaned that the ANC has not given it the full cadre deployment records.

This after the ANC claimed the laptop which carried most of the records has since crashed while others were erroneously deleted by an employee who sought to free up more space on his private email account. 

The DA has since written to the ANC, giving them two days to release the full records as per the direction of the ConCourt. 

The DA also told the ANC that its unilateral decision to redact some of the names contained in the records citing POPIA was at odds with the court’s directive. 

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