The ANC’s secretary-general Fikile Mbalula has hit back at the Democratic Alliance over the ruling party’s cadre deployment policy, saying the DA was also using the same policy where it governs to advance its agenda.
The DA lost an application in the High Court in Pretoria in which it wanted the cadre deployment policy to be declared unconstitutional and unlawful.
This was after its victory in the Constitutional Court to force the ANC to hand over records of the cadre deployment committee.
The ANC this week handed over some of the records, but it said it could not find records of meetings of the committee between 2012 and 2017.
This was the same position that was raised by the party at the Zondo Commission in 2021 when President Cyril Ramaphosa appeared before it.
Mbalula said the DA’s court action in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to declare cadre deployment unconstitutional was baseless.
He said this policy was practised in many democracies across the world.
“In many democracies, it is common practice that a party that has won elections seeks to ensure that the people who are appointed to senior positions in the administration understand and support the policy agenda of the democratically elected governing party, so long as such people are appointed in accordance with the legal procedures and they meet the competency requirements for such positions.
“After all, parties are elected to lead government on the basis of their policies and performance. And deployed cadres in this regard become the stewards to steer the policy paradigm as entailed in the elections manifesto of the party that won the elections,” said Mbalula.
He said the DA cannot claim that this policy was only practised by the ANC.
He said the deployment committee was not micro-managing the state.
Mbalula said the DA’s legal battle over the policy of cadre deployment was to reverse the gains made in the past to transform the country.
“The DA is profoundly dishonest and misleading the public in presenting itself as a party that does not deploy its members into the public service to pursue its policy agenda.
“In this regard the DA pretends that all its deployees are merely recruited by the chance of merit and not a deliberate effort to advance the DA’s agenda.
“There is evidence in the City of Tshwane and the Western Cape that the DA itself has been practising its own version of cadre deployment of its leaders and members into positions of administration where the party governs.
“This includes a parallel process of the DA Federal Executive candidates for employment in DA-led municipalities as described by Alan Winde in a submission to the Public Protector in 2021, in which he correctly argued that such internal rules and policies are widespread [and] common.“
He said the argument raised by the DA in court that cadre deployment was unconstitutional and unlawful was wrong. That is why the high court rejected its application on Wednesday, he said.
Mbalula said the courts were being drawn into political battles.
Mbalula said when Ramaphosa appeared before the Zondo Commission three years ago he explained the policy of cadre deployment.
Only parties that did not want to see change and transformation would believe cadre deployment led to social and economic problems in the country, said Mbalula.
siyabonga.mkhwanazi@inl.co.za
IOL Politics