Home

ANC instructs task team on State Capture to review cadre deployment policy

Reading Time: 4 minutes

The African National Congress National Executive Committee (NEC) has instructed its task team on State Capture to review its cadre deployment policy.

The team led by NEC member Jeff Radebe presented the findings of the State Capture report to the NEC last weekend. The report made findings against the ruling party and its cadre deployment policy. President Cyril Ramaphosa officially received Parts Five and Six of the report last month.

The move by the ANC’s highest decision making body comes after the scathing report by Chief Justice and State Capture Commission Chairperson, Raymond Zondo. Zondo found that the cadre deployment policy of the ruling party could be abused to achieve ends which are not in the best interest of the country, labelling it as unconstitutional.

Part Four of the State Capture report also thrust the party in the spotlight.

Zondo said the ANC should be ashamed of the corruption that has taken place under its watch because it is the ruling party that is at the heart of deploying its members to positions of power. Briefing the media on the outcomes of the NEC meeting held last weekend, party spokesperson Pule Mabe said the organisation would transparently deal with all aspects of the Commission’s report.

“The ANC will among others, review its policies with respect to cadre deployment policy and practice, party funding principles, organisational discipline and accountability and Parliamentary oversight. A task team will make recommendations on key principles in each of these areas. individuals mentioned or implicated in the report, all such ANC current and former leaders and ANC members without prejudice must immediately take the initiative and present themselves to the integrity commission,” says Mabe.

Despite this, NEC member Zizi Kodwa says the deployment of party members in key positions is a global phenomenon.

“We don’t have something called cadre deployment in the ANC. What we know is an international phenomenon that all parties in the world, they deploy those who share ideas of the party, whether you are talking about the best developed economies. In the US, when a Republican president wins, all those who were Democrats they don’t have to be told to leave the office. It’s in the nature of political parties that you can’t deploy somebody who disagrees with your policies because you need somebody to implement your policies so this notion that cadre deployment is neither here nor there because a DA mayor in Cape Town is a deployee of DA,” says Kodwa

However, Political Analyst Moelesti Mbeki says as a private organisation, the ruling party cannot decide who is fit to run the state, the asset of South African citizens.

“The ANC leadership does not understand the relationship between it as a political party and the state of South Africa which is an institution of the people of South Africa. That’s why it’s very important to understand that the ANC is a private organisation. The state of South Africa is an asset of the people of South Africa so the ANC has no capacity or capability of pinpointing who is fit for what purpose. They cannot decide how the people of South Africa should run their state,” says Mbeki.

Meanwhile, DA Federal Chairperson Helen Zille has lamented the ANC’s decision to defend cadre deployment. Last month, the party launched a legal bid at the Pretoria High Court to have the court declare cadre deployment unconstitutional and unlawful. The ANC has since announced its decision to oppose the DA’s application. Zille says the governing party has sought to defend a policy that is at the heart of state capture.

“The Zondo Commission showed clearly that the ANC’s policy of cadre deployment was at the heart of state capture and corruption and failed criminal state. That is what state capture was, it was cadre deployment brought to its logical conclusion. There was a very clear indication from the Zondo Commission that Chief Justice Zondo believes that cadre deployment is unconstitutional and so when we take that to court to make that official, that cadre deployment is unconstitutional, it should not be permitted. The ANC defends the very policy that is at the heart of the captured, corrupt and criminal state.”

The ANC’s task team is expected to make recommendations on the party’s cadre deployment policy.

VIDEO: Likelihood of ANC implementing recommendations in the State Capture Report: Moeletsi Mbeki 

Author

MOST READ