The DA says it has won its case at the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, with the court finding the ANC and its secretary-general Fikile Mbalula in contempt of court for not providing the party with unredacted cadre deployment records.
The ANC complied with the Constitutional Court ruling in February and handed over cadre deployment records to the DA, accusing the opposition party of deliberate misrepresentation, threats and false expectations of what might be contained in the records.
However, the DA last month approached the high court saying most of the cadre deployment records supplied by the ANC had been incomplete or 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 chairperson of the deployment committee, between December 2012 and December 2017.
On Wednesday, the DA said the high court declared that the ANC was in breach of the order handed down by the Constitutional Court.
It said the court had ordered the ANC to, 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 January 1, 2013, to January 1, 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.
Lungi Mtshali, an ANC official, 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.
Mbalula said some information had been lost when his laptop crashed and that Masilela had deleted numerous emails related to the committee throughout 2023 to free up space in his inbox.
ANC national communications manager Martina Della Togna on Wednesday said that the party would comment once it received the judgment.
DA MP Leon Schreiber said the party approached the court on an urgent basis on March 4 after the “ANC unlawfully redacted, destroyed and withheld records of its cadre deployment committee dating back to January 1, 2013, when Cyril Ramaphosa became its chairperson”.
“The court today agreed with the DA that this behaviour by the ANC, in violation of a court order upheld by the Constitutional Court, amounts to ‘wilful’ and ‘male fide’ contempt of court.
“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.
In February, both the ANC and the DA made the documents publicly available, although the documents only cover the period 2018 onwards, Ramaphosa telling the Zondo Commission into State Capture that the ANC has no records of its deployment committee meetings and decisions between 2013 and 2018 because no minutes were taken.
This was the period when then deputy president and head of the deployment committee, Ramaphosa, chaired the committee.
After handing over the documents, ANC spokesperson Mahlengi Bhengu Motsiri said at the time that the party would continue implementing its cadre development policy and deployment strategy “to ensure that individuals with impressive qualifications, experience and credentials are deployed to build a better life for all South Africans”.
The ANC said its policy recommended candidates, it did not dictate to the government who should be appointed.
The DA had asked the court to declare the ANC’s cadre deployment policy inconsistent with the Constitution and invalid but this aspect of their court case was not successful.
The Mercury