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The Democratic Alliance (DA) is not surprised about the panicked response by the African National Congress (ANC) following the DA’s ground-breaking victory in the Johannesburg High Court to compel the party to release complete records of its national cadre deployment committee, including meeting minutes, Whatsapp conversations, email threads, CVs and other documents. Following yesterday’s ruling in favour of the DA in this matter, the ANC hastily announced that it would appeal the case, seemingly prior to even obtaining considered legal advice.

The ANC’s rush to keep secrets from the people of South Africa at all costs only serves to confirm that there are many skeletons buried within the cadre deployment records sought by the DA. After all, if cadre deployment was as harmless as the ANC likes to claim, why are they so desperate to prevent the people of South Africa from seeing the truth about the party’s interference in appointment processes?

Aside from the desperation of the ANC’s rush to appeal this court ruling – which also directed the ANC to pay the DA’s costs in the case – there are two further reasons why the ANC’s response to the ruling is hypocritical.

The first is that it exposes how President Cyril Ramaphosa deceived the State Capture Commission. During his testimony before the Commission, Ramaphosa was questioned about the secretive nature of the cadre deployment committee he led from 2013, during the height of state capture. Under pressure from Chief Justice Raymond Zondo, Ramaphosa claimed that he found it “a proposition that is interesting to remove this shroud of secrecy. Maybe the party should be able to show its hand.” The fact that the ANC is now so desperately trying to hide these records from the people, shows that Ramaphosa was never serious about transparency.

The second reason why this desperate move is hypocritical is because the ANC, during its testimony in the DA’s separate court application to declare cadre deployment unconstitutional, claimed that this practice was part of its exercise of “free speech” and “public debate.” This too is exposed as an untruth by the ANC’s appeal of this case, because secrecy is anathema to free speech and public debate.

The DA has repeatedly warned that ANC that we are going to rip the heart out of its corruption network by consigning cadre deployment corruption to the dustbin of history. We are now well on our way to winning this war, which is in the interest of every South African who wants an end to corruption and a start to proper service delivery, where officials are appointed based on merit and skill instead of on the basis of their loyalty to the ANC corruption.

We look forward to giving the ANC another hiding in court in our quest to free South Africa from corruption.

Issued by Dr Leon Schreiber MP - DA Shadow Minister for Public Service and Administration