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President Cyril Ramaphosa receiving the fifth and final Judicial Commission of Inquiry into Allegations of State Capture from Chief Justice Raymond Zondo.
Gallo Images/Alet Pretorius
- The ANC contingent on the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration shot down the DA’s bill to end cadre deployment.
- This despite the Zondo Commission’s finding that cadre deployment is unconstitutional.
- “Unfortunately, Judge Zondo is not governing on our behalf,” said ANC MP Tyotyo James.
Chief Justice Raymond Zondo – who in the state capture report found cadre deployment is unconstitutional – is not governing on the ANC’s behalf, the chairperson of the Portfolio Committee on Public Service and Administration, Tyotyo James, said as the ANC shot down the DA’s End Cadre Deployment private member’s bill.
Towards the end of the committee’s meeting on Wednesday, after the ANC made it clear it would not back the bill brought by DA MP Leon Schreiber, James expressed his support for cadre deployment.
“Cadre deployment as a concept there’s nothing wrong with it. Because, any political party that assumes power, makes it a point that it deploys personnel from its own ranks to ensure that whatever this political party that is governing wants to achieve, is implemented by the people who understands the objectives of this political power, I mean party in power,” James said.
READ | Why ANC’s cadre deployment is unlawful: DA relies on strikingly similar legal basis as Zondo
“Cadre deployment does not seek to deploy incompetent people, people who do not have qualifications. No. Cadre deployment as a concept does not seek to do that. But if there are those who are deployed who are not competent, that should be rectified, that should be addressed.”
He added the bill was rejected by the committee.
“Go and tell Judge Zondo that,” Schreiber interjected.
James responded:
Unfortunately, Judge Zondo is not governing on our behalf. Yes, he is the chairperson of the State Capture Commission. Yes, whatever he has raised in that report, the president will take that report to Parliament, and Parliament will debate that.
This is the latest instance of the ANC defending the controversial policy, which played a significant part in enabling state capture, Zondo found in his final report.
He emphasised Section 197(3) of the Constitution, which reads: “No employee of the public service may be favoured or prejudiced only because that person supports a particular political party or cause.”
The report also rejected President Cyril Ramaphosa and ANC chairperson Gwede Mantashe’s defence of cadre deployment in their testimony to the commission.
Days after the release of the report, Mantashe slammed Zondo’s finding, saying without cadre deployment, the transformation of the public service since 1994 would never have been possible.
READ | If we don’t look after whistleblowers, they won’t be around for the next state capture – Zondo
He also defended the deployment of Gupta stooge Brian Molefe.
The DA lodged an application to outlaw cadre deployment two weeks before the final parts of the Zondo Commission report were released on 22 June.
In his responding affidavit, ANC treasury-general Paul Mashatile said the ANC was not bound by the Constitution or the commission’s findings.
Ramaphosa, responding as the president of the country, rather than as the president of the ANC, contradicted the commission’s findings, arguing cadre deployment did not break the Constitution or Public Service Act.
Justice and Correctional Services Minister Ronald Lamola, at a recent engagement dinner with businesspeople in Sandton, defended the policy, but added it failed at times.
In a statement released after the meeting, Schreiber said the ANC “deliberately sabotaged” the bill to “protect the corruption network that unleashed state capture on our country”.
“In a clearly coordinated effort to prevent the DA from abolishing this evil practice, ANC members of the committee disregarded the Zondo Commission’s findings that cadre deployment is unconstitutional and illegal, voiced a full-throated defence of cadre deployment, and outright lied about the DA’s proposed bill,” he added.
In a statement from James, the bill was rejected to “avoid duplication of what is already existing and due to be tabled in Parliament”.
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