ANC secretary general Fikile Mbalula. (OJ Koloti/Gallo Images)
The Democratic Alliance (DA) has taken another step towards its mission of exposing the ANC’s cadre deployment policy as unlawful after the Johannesburg High Court ruled in its favour on Wednesday, finding the governing party and its secretary general Fikile Mbalula in contempt of court.
The DA approached the court in March after the ANC served them with its cadre deployment records, most of which were redacted.
The party wanted the court to find that Mbalula unlawfully redacted some of the documents and failed to submit records for the period during which President Cyril Ramaphosa was chair of the deployment committee, between December 2012 and December 2017.
DA MP Leon Schreiber said that the ruling confirmed beyond all doubt that the ANC was a “lawless criminal syndicate” prepared to trigger a constitutional crisis to hide that its “corrupt” cadre deployment committee was the root cause of state capture, corruption and service delivery failure.
“While the ANC is clearly prepared to go to any length to hide its dirty cadre deployment secrets and undermine the rule of law, there is fortunately no limit to the DA’s determination to uphold the rule of law and abolish cadre deployment corruption from the face of this country,” Schreiber said.
The high court declared that the ANC was in breach of an order by the constitutional court and ordered the ANC to pay the DA’s full costs for the application.
The court said the ANC must, within 15 days, give effect to the original court order and provide the DA with all the information that has already been disclosed, and that is further required to be disclosed, in unredacted form.
It ordered the ANC to provide the official opposition all information related to the processes and decisions of the ANC cadre deployment committee during the period 1 January 2013 to 1 January 2021.
These include minutes, draft minutes, notes, attendance registers, communications and all decisions of the deployment committee.
The high court has also said the ANC must produce the hard drive and personal and business laptop of ANC official Thepelo Masilela, the strategic support manager in Mbalula’s office.
ANC official Lungi Mtshali was also ordered to surrender his laptop.
Mbalula claimed in his responding affidavit to the DA that Masilela’s laptop had crashed. Masilela was in possession of the records.
The ANC leader said some information had been lost when his laptop crashed.
The ANC claimed that Masilela had deleted numerous emails related to the committee throughout 2023 to free up space in his inbox.
“As a result of today’s ruling, the DA calls on Ramaphosa to act in accordance with his position as president of South Africa in order to bring an end to this escalating constitutional crisis triggered by his party, by abiding by the ruling and handing over to the DA all of his personal emails, Whatsapps and other communication revealing the role he personally played in state capture through his position as ANC cadre deployment chairperson,” Schreiber said.
“Once again, the clock is ticking on the ANC. It has 15 working days — until 24 April 2024 — to hand over all, complete and unredacted cadre deployment records, including those held by Ramaphosa.
“As we have done throughout our years-long battle to expose and defeat ANC cadre deployment, the DA reserves our rights to pursue further action against the constitutional delinquents masquerading as a governing party,” the DA said.