Former ANC Tshwane chairperson Kgosi Maepa. (Deaan Vivier/ Gallo)
Former ANC Tshwane regional leader Kgosi Maepa says if the Democratic Alliance (DA) fails to give him the records of its deployment decisions by Wednesday, he will cite the party’s case against the ANC on cadre deployment to compel it to do so.
Maepa told the Mail & Guardian that he would proceed with legal action should the DA fail to hand over the documents he requested by 5pm on Wednesday.
“In court, I will use their case to give me the documents. I will quote their case to say they requested the same thing and I’m requesting the same procedure,” he said. “I am proceeding now to take legal action. The DA went to court and they said they want cadre deployment documents — why is it that when somebody asks them, they refuse?”
In a letter dated 27 February, Maepa’s lawyers demanded that the DA and Gauteng leader Solly Msimanga provide them with minutes of the party’s federal executive meeting dated 30 September 2016 or the resolutions passed by the meeting.
They demanded that the DA give their client the party’s “fit for purpose policy”, as of September 2016, or any policy governing the employment, deployment, appointment and recommendation of DA members to positions of power.
The letter said these positions of power included, but were not limited to, those defined in the Public Service Act, the Public Finance Management Act, the Local Government: Municipal Structures Act and the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act.
This was after the DA won a court order compelling the ANC to submit all records of the decisions of its cadre deployment committee for more than a decade. The party demanded that the ANC release “minutes, CVs, email threads, WhatsApp discussions and other relevant documents relating to the deployment committee”.
The official opposition was particularly interested in cadre deployment records during President Cyril Ramaphosa’s time as the head of the ANC’s deployment committee.
In response to Maepa, on 6 March, Msimanga’s lawyers said they had not received a request to access this information in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA). They said Msimanga was “looking forward” to a PAIA request and, if it was received, they would be processed within the timelines set in the act.
Maepa said the DA was “not being honest” in the response to his lawyers who had submitted the PAIA papers to DA federal chair Helen Zille on 27 February.
“PAIA works like this — there’s somebody called an information officer, in our case, it’s Fikile Mbalula [ANC secretary general] and, in the DA’s case, it’s Helen Zille. Why can’t they simply give the documents? What is there to hide?” he said.
“We have sent it to request the documents without court — they have an opportunity without court.”
In a letter on Friday, Maepa’s lawyers said their client was waiting for the requested records and should this request not be adhered to — and while considering the relevant provisions of the PAIA — he would seek recourse to court.