Durban - The DA is planning to approach the North Gauteng High Court to have ANC cadre deployment corruption declared unconstitutional, illegal and unlawful, and to eradicate it from the country once and for all.
The party says that it will be submitting the entire section of the report that deals with cadre deployment as formal supplementary evidence in its case in the North Gauteng High Court.
The DA’s intention to approach the court follows Wednesday evening’s release of the final instalment of the State Capture Report.
DA MP and spokesperson on Public Administration, Dr Leon Schreiber, said that the release of the final report amounted to a “total and complete vindication of the DA’s decades-long fight against cadre deployment, which we have systematically intensified into a full-blown war in recent years”.
“This means that the final volume of the State Capture Report now becomes the fourth crucial piece of evidence we are submitting in our court challenge against this corrupt practice.
“The other three key pieces of the puzzle include the actual wording of the ANC’s cadre deployment policy, testimony delivered under oath in front of the State Capture Commission by the likes of former ANC cadre deployment chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa, and the 2018-2021 minutes of the ANC’s national cadre deployment committee that the DA helped expose,” Schreiber said.
He said that the DA intended to use the findings of the final State Capture Report to devastating effect in its court challenge to the ANC.
“In paragraph 657, the report echoes key aspects of the DA’s case by concluding that ‘it is unlawful and unconstitutional for a president of this country and any minister, deputy minister or director-general or other government official, including those in parastatals, to take into account recommendations of the ANC deployment committee’,” Schreiber said.
He added that, importantly, the report also directly implicated the chairperson of the ANC cadre deployment committee between December 2012 and December 2017, Cyril Ramaphosa.
“Zondo, in paragraphs 622 and 623, finds that ‘Many of these people … who enabled state capture … would have been appointed by the deployment committee … It is not sufficient for President Ramaphosa to focus on the future of the party and his envisaged renewal process. Responsibility ought to be taken for the events of the previous era’,” Schreiber added.
He said that this meant that in the DA’s court case against ANC cadre deployment, Ramaphosa and his “deplorable deployment committee” now stood as “accused number one”.
“Like the DA, Judge Zondo also finds it hard to believe that no meeting minutes exist for the period between 2012 and 2017 when Ramaphosa chaired the committee,” Schreiber said.
SUNDAY TRIBUNE